International Monetary Fund has revised down the loan amount by around $125 million for the next tranche under the ongoing $4.7 billion loan programme Bangladesh has taken amid the shortage of foreign currencies.
The Washington-based multilateral lender has calculated the loan amount at about $470 million from previous estimate of $594 million for the next trench expected to be disbursed in next November.
The revision in the loan amount has been made public in a report released by IMF in the past month.
Finance division officials, who are coordinating the current loan progarmme taken since FY23 in the wake of severe dollar shortage hampering economic activities, are also aware of the revision.
But the revision will not bring any change to the overall amount, they said.聽聽聽
They attributed the disbursement of $1.12 billion instead of $594 million as the third tranche in the past month for the revision in loan amounts in the next tranches up to May 2026.
The local side convinced the IMF to double the amount of loan for the third tranche, they said.
With the disbursement of the third tranche, Bangladesh has already received around $2.3 billion out of $4.7 billion.
Finance ministry officials hoped that the disbursement of the next tranche would be made timely as conditions set under the timeframe favourable for the local side to carry out.
The requirement of the net international reserve has been fixed at $14.9 billion in September and $15.31 billion in December, compared to the target of $20.1 billion in June 2024 which was revised at $14.7 billion.
The revenue collection targets, which are also key component of the loan programme, has been fixed at Tk 95,610 crore until September and Tk 2,15,120 crore in December.
Under the structural benchmark, the National Board of Revenue has to finalise a Medium-and Long-term Revenue Strategy covering indirect and direct tax and an accompanying implementation framework by December.
Ministry of Planning will formulate the Sector Strategy Papers and Multi-Year Public Investment Programmes for a total of five sectors to strengthen the public investment management.
Bangladesh Bank will complete implementation of high-priority recommendations in the first stage of modernisation of the monetary policy framework in line with recommendations of the IMF by September.
As part of reform measures, the IMF wanted the government to issue a circular on an update to the Green Book to include supplementary guidance on sector specific methodologies that integrate climate considerations in the appraisal of major infrastructure projects.
It also wants the BB to conduct and publish climate stress testing for the overall financial system and update the guidelines on stress testing for banks and financial institutions to include climate change considerations.
