Industries Minister Khandakar Abdul Muktadir on Monday flagged labour-intensive industrial development as one of Bangladesh’s most effective routes to economic progress, given the country’s large population and limited land.

The government will favour sectors that generate more jobs for less capital investment in the coming days, Muktadir added.

Speaking at the Bangladesh Institute of Management auditorium in Dhaka, Muktadir said leather, footwear and artificial leather-based industries could together create employment on a large scale, placing them among the sectors the government intends to prioritise.

He was chief guest at a ceremony to hand out certificates and appointment letters to trainees under the second phase of a Bangladesh Industrial Technical Assistance Center (BITAC) project on creating self-employment and reducing poverty through technical training.

The minister said demand for skilled and trained workers would rise as the country’s manufacturing base expands, and that BITAC plays an important role by providing training with full government funding.

A major success of the centre’s training programmes, he said, is that they lead to jobs and trainees who acquire skills get opportunities to work directly in industrial establishments.