The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has pledged to provide US $ 1.15 billion to Bangladesh in the third instalment under its multibillion-dollar loan programme.
The international lender stated in a news release that an IMF team and the Government of Bangladesh had reached a staff-level agreement on the policies required to finish the second review under the ECF/EFF/RSF arrangements.
The Executive Board of the Washington-based lender must approve the staff-level deal, which is anticipated to happen in the upcoming weeks.
Completion of the second review will make available about US $ 932 million, under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF)/Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and about US $ 220 million under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF). This means upon the board’s approval; Bangladesh will have access to about US $ 1.15 billion.
The third installment comes as the mission team led by Chris Papageorgiou concluded its 15-day visit to Bangladesh today. In the framework of the second programme review, economic and financial policies were covered during the visit.
“The authorities have made significant progress on structural reforms under the IMF-supported programme, including the implementation of a formula-based fuel price adjustment mechanism for petroleum products,” said Papageorgiou in a statement.
“However, higher-than-anticipated ripple effects from tighter global financial conditions, as well as persistently high international food and commodity prices and domestic vulnerabilities, have resulted in dwindling foreign exchange (FX) reserves and consistently high inflation. This has made macroeconomic difficulties more complex and increased economic pressures.”
