World Bank's Vice President for South Asia Region Annette Dixon on Monday lauded Bangladesh for its marked progress in many areas.
"Bangladesh is making very good progress on many development outcomes," she told reporters after a meeting with Finance Minister AMA Muhith at the latter residence in the city.
Dixon also expressed her satisfaction over the progress of projects jointly financed by the global lender and the government of Bangladesh.
"Yesterday I had the opportunity to review a number of projects financed by the government of Bangladesh, the World Bank and other development partners. And I'm extremely impressed on the scale of progress it has made in the project areas," she added.
Dixon said she thinks the World Bank's existence with international knowledge and financing in Bangladesh will help it make considerable progress on reducing poverty and improving the lifestyle of its population.
As the journalists sought comment over a newspaper report that hackers took away money from the Bangladesh Bank reserve, Finance Minister declined to make any remark. "I can't make any statement. I don't have any report of the central bank (in this regard). I saw it in the newspapers," he said.
Daily Samakal ran a story on Monday that foreign hackers took away Tk 800 crore from the foreign currency reserve of the Bangladesh Bank.
Replying to a query if any step would be taken in this regard, the Finance Minister said, "We'll see? it's an unusual situation. I can't say anything about it (now)."
World Bank's new country director for Bangladesh Qimiao Fan was present at the one-hour meeting.    ?UNB