Foreign loan pledges down 67.36pc in July-Feb
The government has continued facing pressure regarding the external debt management in eight months (July-February) of the 2024-25 financial year.
Economic Relations Division officials said that the pressure continued to be felt as both foreign loan commitments and disbursement were falling against an upward trend in payments of government foreign debts.
Referring to the monthly update released by the ERD on Tuesday, the officials said loan commitments from the multilateral and bilateral lenders dropped by 67.36 per cent to $2.38 billion in the July-February period of FY25.
In the same period of the past FY24, the commitments were about $7.20 billion from the multilateral lenders like International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Asian Development Bank and bilateral lenders like Japan, Russia and China.
The ERD update showed that the disbursement of foreign loans in the eight months of FY25 decreased by 16 per cent to $4.1 billion compared with that of $4.9 billion in the corresponding period of FY24.
The update also showed that the foreign loan payments were maintaining a rising trend.
The government debt payments in the July-February period of FY25 stood at $2.6 billion, while the figure was $2.03 billion in the same period of FY24.
Until the July-January period of FY25, the government鈥檚 debt payments rose by 33 per cent over the same period of FY24.
Economists blamed wrong economic management by the Awami League government, which was ousted on August 5, 2024, amid a mass uprising, for the sharp rise in overseas debt payments in the past several financial years, including FY25.
The interim government that assumed power on August 8, 2024, is trying to mend the damage done by the authoritarian Sheikh Hasina regime on the economic front of the country, they said.
The 2023-24 financial year was the most inauspicious one as the government had to incur additional $1 billion in debt because of a sharp devaluation of the taka against the dollar, according to an ERD publication.