Bangladesh is expected to graduate from the group of the least developed countries in the 2017-2024 period, according to a report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).“Bangladesh is projected to graduate in 2024 meeting all three criteria: income, human asset index and economic vulnerability index, said UNCTAD in the report-”The Least Developed Countries Report 2016: The Path to Graduation and Beyond” published here today.According to the report, Bangladesh will qualify primarily to graduate from the LDC list by 2018, it will be able to maintain the three graduation criteria up to 2021 and it will be able to come out completely from the LDC list in 2024.Despite the graduation from LDC status in 2024, Bangladesh may enjoy LDC preferential treatment up to following 2027 to help with her smooth transition.Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) releasing the report at a press conference held at BRAC Inn. CPD`s research fellow Tawfiqul Islam Khan presented the report while CPD`s distinguished fellow Dr Debapriya Bhattachariya and executive director Dr Mustafizur Rahman made comments on the report.“Graduation from LDC status is not enough, graduation with momentum is important and Bangladesh needs to maintain momentum for a sustainable or smooth graduation,” said Debapriya.He said Bangladesh needs to lay emphasis on education, nutrition, literacy, maternal mortality to develop human resources for a sustainable development.“Productivity must be increased. Bangladesh needs to develop labour-intensive five more sectors like RMG that will help create more jobs,” he added.It said Bangladesh is among countries that have brought in tax reforms to improve government revenues by simplifying and modernizing tax collection and expanding the tax base.The report said following several years of apparent resilience to the international economic and financial crisis, economic growth in the LDCs has declined steeply since 2012, reaching a low of 3.6 percent in 2015.This is the slowest pace of expansion this century, and far below the target rate of at least 7 percent per annum recommended by the 2011 Programme of Action for the LDCs for 2011-2020 (the so-called Istanbul Programme of Action.“Such weak economic growth is a serious obstacle to generating and mobilising domestic resources for structural transformation and investment in the development of productive capacities. It also hampers progress towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals,” the report said.Source: BSS