Bangladesh has averted a potential major crisis by reaching out to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in a timely manner, said Kaushik Basu, a former chief economist of the World Bank.

Bangladesh has a low risk of external and overall debt distress despite higher external borrowing in recent terms, said the International Monetary Fund.

The International Monetary Fund has identified the problems in the banking system, including the high volume of defaulted loans, as one of the three domestic risks that derail the economy in the short- to medium-term.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has disbursed $476.27 million to Bangladesh as the first instalments of $4.7 billion loan it approved early this week.

As the US dollar shortage persists, businesses in Bangladesh are increasingly finding it difficult to open letters of credit (LCs) since banks can’t supply the adequate American greenback needed to finance imports.

The prospective loan programme of the International Monetary Fund will prime Bangladesh for graduation from the least-developed country bracket and reach middle-income country status by 2031, said the lender’s top official.

Bangladesh’s $4.5 billion loan programme with the International Monetary Fund is expected to get the final approval on January 30, said the lender’s visiting top official yesterday.

There would not be any further negotiations on the $4.5 billion loan programme during International Monetary Fund’s deputy managing director Antoinette Monsio Sayeh’s forthcoming visit to Bangladesh.

The government continues to borrow from Bangladesh Bank on a large scale as commercial banks are now unable to finance the state due to liquidity crunch.

This year was always supposed to be a celebration of Bangladesh’s economic progress with the opening of Padma bridge and Dhaka metro rail and 100 percent electrification.

Restoring equilibrium in both money market and forex market should be the central bank’s singular goal.

The government managed to implement 85 per cent of the budget in the last fiscal year despite spending a huge amount as subsidies and incentives, raising questions about the trend of unveiling bigger budgets year after year.  

Global economic growth prospects are confronting a unique mix of headwinds, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, interest rate increases to contain inflation, and lingering pandemic effects such as China’s lockdowns and disruptions in supply chains, according to the International Monetary Fund. 

The global economic outlook is even gloomier than projected last month, the International Monetary Fund said on Sunday, citing a steady worsening in purchasing manager surveys in recent months.

The government yesterday reached a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund over a $4.5 billion loan programme, putting to bed all suspense on whether a deal would be struck with the multilateral lender at all.

The government will not accept IMF loan with “hard conditions”, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader said today.

What Bangladeshi economists have been saying for a long time is pretty much what the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has told our central bank and the government.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) has advised the government to rationalise the existing tariff structure by reducing various types of para and non-tariff barriers to improve competitiveness of domestic industries. 

The government should stop fund wastage in the energy sector and eventually phase out subsidies, which have created pressure on the public coffer, according to economists and entrepreneurs.

All our institutions are crumbling because of politicisation, inefficiencies, and corruption.