Finance Minister AMA Muhith has said trade must be given great importance to expedite economic activities of the countries around the world and implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), reports the United News of Bangladesh.

The Finance Minister was attending a discussion titled ‘Financing the SDGs’ at the UN headquarters, New York on Wednesday as part of programmes marking the 50th anniversary of the UNDP, according to a PID handout issued here on Thursday.

Ministers for Finance, Planning and Development from across the world participated in the programme.

UNDP Administrator Helen Clark and executives of international and regional development organisations also attended the day-long programme.

Muhith said Bangladesh has tremendously expedited domestic resource mobilisation and has been implementing giant infrastructure projects which would contribute to the implementation of SDGs. ‘Through the process, Bangladesh has come out of the ODA (official development assistance) dependency also.’

The Finance Minister, however, disagreed with the announced estimated cost to US$ 3.5 trillion a year for the implementation of SDGs.

He said it was not correct in the case of MDGs as more resources than the estimation was needed in the implementation of MDGs.

Other than the Finance Minister, five dignitaries including the Prime Minister of Senegal, the Finance Minister of Ghana, the Planning Minister of Jordan, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia and the Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan were panel discussants on the subject.

In the morning, the Minister had bilateral meetings with Parliamentary Under Secretary for the international development of the UK, Baroness Verma, UNDP Administrator Helen Clark and Executive Secretary of UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) Judith Karl.

At the meeting, the UK minister expressed her satisfaction for the ongoing development in Bangladesh.

‘We’re impressed by the development in Bangladesh, especially in the areas of eradication of extreme poverty, women empowerment and gender equality and improvement in primary education enrollment,’ she said.

The UK minister showed interest to improve the data quality in Bangladesh.

The UNDP administrator congratulated Bangladesh on its graduation to a lower middle- income country, and hoped that Bangladesh would also be able to implement its target to be a middle income country by 2021. ‘One day, Bangladesh will also be the funding country for the UNDP,’ she said.

The Finance Minister requested the UNDP administrator to provide support to the initiatives of IDCOL to set up solar grids to ensure solar irrigation. They also discussed the challenges to implement the SDGs.

At the meeting with UNCDF executive secretary, Muhith requested her to expedite the process to finalise the project titled ‘Help develop women entrepreneurship through SME’.

He also explained the progress of the implementation of other UNCDF-funded projects. The UNCDF executive assured the Minister that the project for women economic empowerment would be finalised expeditiously.