SANGSAD BHABAN, June 13, 2023 (BSS) - Planning Minister MA Mannan today said that the statistics of the poor people of the country is 18.7 percent and the percentage of the extreme poor is 5.6 percent.

The minister said this while responding to a query made by Hazi Mohammad Selim of Dhaka-7 at the question-answer session which was tabled at the Jatiya Sangsad here with Speaker Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury in the chair.

The poverty rate has been evaluated by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) on the basis of cost of basic needs in the year 2022, said the minister.

The basic cost of needs includes daily food consumption, weekly food consumption, monthly non-food consumption, yearly non-food consumption, education expenditure, health expenditure and household durable goods.