Rejaul Karim Byron

Bangladesh’s use of foreign assistance reached a new record high of $10 billion in fiscal year 2021-22, primarily behind vaccinations, one-time budget support, economic recovery from the pandemic and implementation of mega projects.

Bangladesh’s foreign loan servicing burden will peak in fiscal 2029-30 with repayment of $5.15 billion, which experts deem to be very much within the safe territory -- quelling fears that the country might become the next emerging economy after Sri Lanka and Pakistan to run into external debt distress.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal has sent in a formal request to the IMF for a $4.5 billion loan, putting to bed the speculations on whether the country would be seeking the support from the Washington-based multilateral lender at all.

Bangladesh Bank plans to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with 10 commercial banks for taking various steps on a pilot basis, including periodically publishing their lists of defaulters, in a bid to reduce their default loans. 

The International Monetary Fund is expecting a formal request for a loan from Bangladesh soon to provide a buffer to the delicate foreign currency reserves amid global economic volatility even though the government remains in two minds about it.

The government is stalling on taking the $4.5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to ease the pressure on the foreign currency reserves after seeing the conditions that would be attached.

Inflation raced to a nine-year high of 7.56 percent in June, in a development that lays bare the extent of the cost of living crisis gripping the low-income and middle-class people in Bangladesh thanks to a war taking place some 5,800 kilometres away in Ukraine.

With the partial launch of the country’s first ever metro rail only five months away, the project cost is set to rise by more than half, and the deadline is also going to be extended by a year and half.

In face of growing pressure on the country’s economy, the government issued strict directives to field-level administration to practise austerity while spending from the budget allocation.

People are not getting the maximum benefit from the 761 services the government have digitalised for slow servers and poor internet speed, according to a government evaluation.

A delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is set to arrive in Dhaka tomorrow on a nine-day trip to discuss the government’s request for a $4.5 billion loan in the form of budgetary support.

The government in Bangladesh has already begun enforcing energy and power rationing to contain the surging import cost of gas and fuel oil and turned to austerity measures to save US dollars. 

A large number of households now receive warnings via SMS before a disaster, found a survey.

The digitalisation of 66 percent of the services offered by six ministries/divisions has saved both time and money of the ordinary people and also ensured service delivery, found a recent study by the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division.

In the end, it was not just lip service. Yesterday, on the first working day of the new fiscal year, the government rolled out a cocktail of austerity measures for its own administration that can conserve about Tk 60,000 crore -- for now.

The long-awaited Tk 727 crore National Household Database that is expected to be delivered later this year will not yield the desired outcome for which the project was implemented, said a recent report of the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division.

The generous tax amnesty campaign proposed by Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal for those with undisclosed assets abroad has been pared back in the face of harsh criticism from all quarters.

As a precautionary move, Bangladesh has started talks with the International Monetary Fund about taking a loan of $4-4.5 billion to shore up the precarious foreign currency reserves.

The government is likely to bring some changes in its budget proposals, including enabling one of its three offers at legalising laundered money to require even lesser tax payments.

In 2012, when the government decided to construct the Padma Bridge using its own resources, many economists feared that Bangladesh’s foreign currency reserves would take a big hit.