Rejaul Karim Byron

Foreign assistance utilisation by the government has gone up by 1.57 per cent year-on-year during the first two months of the current fiscal year, thanks to improvements in the use of project aid. 

The World Bank has set forth 12 conditions for extending budget support of about $1.5 billion to Bangladesh over the next three years.

The government is taking up a fresh Tk 7,188 crore project to build a four-lane highway from Cumilla to Brahmanbaria that would improve connectivity between the port city and Sylhet and also make the transshipment arrangements with India more practicable.

The cost of the already delayed elevated expressway project in Chattogram city is likely to rise by Tk 1,048 crore and the deadline extended by two more years as a proposal in this regard is set to be placed before an Ecnec meeting today.

The Finance Division has urged all government offices to rein in hasty expenditures at the end of each fiscal year as it destroys fiscal discipline and increases the government’s borrowing cost.

As the Covid-induced lockdown was taking a heavy toll on the poor back in 2020, the food directorate sold rice at subsidised rates under special and regular Open Market Sale programmes across the country.

The Asian Development Bank would be providing $9.05 billion over the next three years, up 84.7 percent from the preceding three years, as the Manila-based lender is mobilising greater resources to prepare the country well for graduation from the LDC bracket in 2026.

Public hospitals in the capital purchased medical equipment at astronomical prices during the first four months of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, according to an audit report. 

The much-talked-about transshipment facility for Indian goods to its landlocked northeastern states using Bangladesh’s two seaports and inland waterways, roads and rail network has failed to take off in a big way due to the absence of proper infrastructure and awareness.

The government will appoint a German joint venture as the consultant for the construction of a breakwater and channel dredging work at the proposed Bay Terminal, a long-awaited project of Chattogram port.

The government today starts selling rice at subsidised prices in an effort to give respite to the poor and low-income earners and bring stability to the volatile rice market.

The use of foreign aid for development projects in Bangladesh jumped 49 per cent year-on-year in July, providing some relief to the government amid the ongoing pressure on the country’s foreign exchange reserves.

The government yesterday slashed the import duty on rice and is also working to import about 12 lakh tonnes of food grain including rice as it looks to rein in the price of the staple amid a cost of living crisis.

Good intentions gone wrong -- sums up best the government initiative to send officials abroad for training and upskilling.

The government’s austerity measures have hit implementation of the annual development programme (ADP) in the first month of the current fiscal year, with just 0.96 per cent of the total allocation being spent, the lowest in the last four years. 

The World Bank Group is scaling up its lending to Bangladesh in non-concessional terms by as much as three times to prepare the country for its impending LDC graduation, which would close the doors to low-cost funds.

Talks for the support package from the International Monetary Fund are likely to begin after the third week of October, said the Washington-based multilateral lender yesterday.

Four years ago, the government approved a project to construct a container port on the Meghna river in Brahmanbaria’s Ashuganj at an estimated cost of Tk 1,293 crore.

Bangladesh gravitated towards external borrowing to finance its budget deficit in fiscal 2021-22, leveraging the country’s capacity to absorb more of the relatively economical foreign loans.

The record fuel price hike last week has thrown a spanner in the works to the finance division’s projection of bringing the twin problems of inflation and delicate foreign currency reserves under control by December.