Bangladesh and the rest of the world bid adieu to 2020, a year many would like to forget, and welcomed 2021 with hopes that the New Year will be different – and better, UNB reports.
The coronavirus pandemic, brought the world to its knees, is still raging but vaccines are giving people hope that it will be possible to return to normalcy before the virus had hit.
Restrictions put in place to prevent the transmission of the virus resulted in the cancellation of events in Bangladesh in 2020, which would go on late into the night in the previous years.
Bangladesh, like every other nation, was hit hard by the pandemic and saw its growth come to a screeching halt but the country is on its way to recovery.
President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina greeted the nation on the eve of the new year.
In a message, the president urged the people to follow health guidelines while celebrating the occasion which has become somewhat pale because of the pandemic.
Prime Minister Hasina, in her message, said the pandemic has marred the celebrations of independence and Bangabandhu’s birth centenary.
She said she had issued a 31-point directive to tackle the pandemic and gave a stimulus of more than 1.21 trillion under 21 packages to keep the economy running and continue the development works.
The prime minister said Bangladesh would have achieved an 8.2 per cent growth if the pandemic didn’t hit. The country successfully managed to keep its growth at 5.24 per cent during the pandemic, at a time when the whole world was grappling to prevent negative growth.
The government, she said, managed to bring poverty below 20.5 per cent and raise the per capita income to $2,064, among others
“The coronavirus pandemic has given the world a message that … any global problem can be faced through mutual cooperation and partnership,” she said.
