He was speaking as the chief guest at the launching ceremony of the book titled 'Who gets what: A gender analysis of public expenditure in Bangladesh' at RDEC Building conference room of LGED Bhaban at Agargaon in the city yesterday.

The book is edited by Barbara Evers, a gender consultant and Kaniz Siddique, a faculty member of North South University (NSU) and published by University Press Limited (UPL).

The finance minister unveiled the 360-page book priced at Tk 600.

'Researchers need to go to the field to see what a tremendous social transformation has taken place in the rural areas in terms of women development and empowerment' said Saifur.

Dr Rushidan Islam Rahman, research director of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), reviewed the book at the occasion while Japp Vander Zeeuw, Charge d Affairs of Netherlands Embassy in Dhaka, Kristian Jervell, first secretary of Royal Norwegian Embassy and Dr Mohammad Tareque, additional secretary (Budget) of the Ministry of Finance spoke at the occasion chaired by Dr Hafiz GA Siddique, vice-chancellor of NSU.

Funded by both Royal Netherlands Embassy and Royal Norwegian Embassy, the book includes nine different chapters analysing different gender aspects.

'I am a real life politician and I believe in real life politics,' Saifur said adding that it is not possible to say who gets what of budget, as the preview of the topic is very wide. He also opined that researches should be specifically narrated.

He also mentioned that women get a great part of national budget as education, health and communication ministries allocate a great deal of money to increase women activities

Describing various achievement of Bangladesh in gender equality and empowerment, Saifur mentioned student enrolment rate in primary level in this country is the highest in the South Asia and 65 per cent of the primary students are girls. The finance minister also said that gender parity is one of the fundamentals of the budget.

Japp Vander Zeeuw said that Bangladesh has progressed a lot in the field of women empowerment. However, she has a lot to do to achieve the Poverty Reduction Strategic Paper (PRSP) goals.