A budget-support loan agreement of 250 million US dollars has been signed between the government of Bangladesh and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) under the Strengthening Economic Management and Governance Programme (SEMGP) Sub-programme 2. The agreement was signed on Tuesday — by Md Ahsan Kibria Siddiqui, additional secretary of the finance ministry’s Economic Relations Division (ERD), for the government, and Rajat Mishra, director general of the Public Sector Clients Department Region-1, for the AIIB. The ERD gave the information in a press release on Wednesday (10 June).
The release said the financing is part of a 750 million US dollar policy-based lending (PBL) package considered under the AIIB’s Emergency Response Support Facility. The support is being provided to counter growing global economic headwinds — particularly the adverse effects of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East — and to meet urgent public-spending and external-financing needs.
The ERD said the AIIB financing will contribute in several important areas: helping maintain stability and spending in the social sector, advancing ongoing economic reforms and revenue-collection efforts, ensuring the social and infrastructure spending needed to improve people’s living standards, and strengthening Bangladesh’s capacity to absorb external shocks arising from global economic and geopolitical volatility. The financing was provided under SEMGP Sub-programme 2 as part of the government’s efforts to implement strong macroeconomic management and necessary policy reforms for sustainable growth, with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) co-financing the programme alongside the AIIB, the release said.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report