Seven percent GDP growth

According to the BBS data published in The Daily Star on March 6, this year Bangladesh has achieved the highest GDP growth in the last nine years, 7 percent. This definitely is happy news for all of us. However, it would have been even more heartening if the data had also shown how successful we have been in using this tremendous growth in addressing problems like unemployment, poverty, hunger, ill health, illiteracy, maternal mortality and childhood undernourishment, to name a few. Increase in GDP is only a means to attain these ends. Let us remember that only the ends justify the means.
Shahjahan Hafiz
Gulshan, Dhaka.