Dhaka: Mentioning that around $824 billion will be needed to implement programmes for achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs), Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Tuesday underscored the need for mobilising the funds locally.

‘We have to take our own initiatives to locally raise the required funds to achieve the SDGs,’ he said while talking to reporters after inaugurating the 14th meeting of the steering committee of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC) at Pan Pacific Sonargaron Hotel in the city.

Muhith said the country should not depend more on donors’ funds as its experiences of MDG implementation are not good.

The United Nations adopted the SDGs setting 17 global goals with 169 targets to build a poverty-free world by 2030.

The Finance Minister said a huge investment from both the public and private sectors is needed to attain the goals and targets of the SDGs in the next 13 years.

He suggested mobilising the funds from local sources instead of depending on the donors, saying many a time it is found that the promised funds are not available.

Responding to a query, Muhith said there is no government plan to merge the state-owned banks with each other.

He, however, admitted that disbursed term-loans have been the key problem for the state-run banks. ‘But still time has not come to merge them.’

The veteran minister also disagreed with the idea that the country has much more banks than it actually requires. ‘The number of the banks isn’t adequate. Rather, their number could be increased further to meet the needs.’

He said the government’s efforts are on to recover the money stolen from the treasury accounts with New York Federal Reserves. ‘But it’ll take time to get all the money back,’ he added.