Highlights
- Warns it will leave the IMF loan programme if new conditions are added
- Following all IMF demands could weaken the economy
- The disbursement of future IMF loan installments is now uncertain
Bangladesh will pull out of the loan programme if the International Monetary Fund (IMF) imposes additional conditions for the release of upcoming tranches of the $4.7 billion loan, Chief Adviser’s Special Assistant Anisuzzaman Chowdhury warned today (3 May).
“Bangladesh will withdraw if the IMF imposes more conditions for loan release. Because if all the conditions of the organisation are followed, the economy will become weak,” he said at a budget seminar held at the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council in Dhaka’s Farmgate.
At the seminar ahead of Bangladesh’s final recognition as a developing country next year, agricultural economists urged the government to raise the agriculture budget with clear targets.
They also recommended reducing VAT on the import of raw materials used in poultry feed production, and called for easier access to loans and incentives for farmers.
Faced with dwindling foreign exchange reserves, Bangladesh signed a $4.7 billion loan agreement with the IMF on 30 January 2023.
The first tranche of $476.27 million was disbursed three days later. This was followed by a second instalment of $682 million on 16 December of the same year. The third instalment of $1.15 billion was received on 24 June last year.
The IMF is scheduled to release the loan in six instalments by 2026. Although Bangladesh has so far received three, uncertainty now surrounds the disbursement of the fourth and fifth instalments.
