IMF loan: Understanding reached on second tranche, says BB

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reached an understanding with Bangladesh over the release of the second tranche of its loan to the country. The matter of releasing the second installment on the loan will be approved during the IMF board meeting to be held in December. The Bangladesh Bank spokesman Mezbaul Huq announced this at a press briefing today, Thursday.

Earlier, the visiting IMF delegation held a concluding meeting with the governor of Bangladesh Bank Abdur Rauf Talukdar. The IMF team, led by its Asia-Pacific division chief Rahul Anand, arrived in Dhaka on 3 October and began meetings with various stakeholders from 4 October. The mission concludes today, 19 October, with the meeting held with Bangladesh Bank.

Speaking at the press briefing, the Bangladesh Bank spokesman said some of the conditions put forward by IMF have been met. However, the conditions concerning reserves and revenue have not been fulfilled. IMF was apprised of the local and global reasons behind this. After that an understanding was reached in the release of the second tranche of the loan.

The spokesman said, after approval by the IMF board, Bangladesh will receive the second installment of USD 680 million (USD 68 crore).

In January this year, IMF approved of a USD 4.7 billion (USD 470 crore) loan package for Bangladesh. After the approval, IMF announced that under the Bangladesh will get USD 3.3 billion under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) and the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and USD 1.4 billion under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF).

Meanwhile, IMF had held up the second loan installment to Sri Lanka. With a fall in inflation, Sri Lanka hiked up interest rate by 100 points and so the second tranche of the bailout loan was held up.