IMF says it is ready to support Bangladesh after loan request

Garment staff appear out of a factory through the lunch crack as factories stay open despite a countrywide lockdown, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, July 6, 2021. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

DHAKA, July 27 (Reuters) – The Global Monetary Fund (IMF) explained on Wednesday it would examine with Bangladesh its bank loan request immediately after the state turned the third in South Asia to look for this sort of help soon after Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Bangladesh’s $416 billion economic climate has been 1 of the speediest-growing in the environment for years, but mounting vitality and food stuff charges since of the Russia-Ukraine war have inflated its import monthly bill and the present-day account deficit.

The IMF claimed Bangladesh was intrigued in its new Resilience and Sustainability Facility aimed at encouraging countries facial area weather-change troubles and had also requested negotiations for an “accompanying IMF programme”.

“The IMF stands all set to assist Bangladesh, and the team will interact with the authorities on software style and design as for every the founded policies and techniques of the Fund,” an IMF spokesperson reported. “The quantity of support will be portion of the software style conversations.”

Before in the working day, Bangladesh’s finance minister told reporters the authorities would take an IMF bank loan only if problems are favourable and stated the country’s macroeconomic problems were wonderful.

“If the IMF disorders are in favour of the place and appropriate with our progress coverage, we are going to go for it, or else not,” Minister A.H.M. Mustafa Kamal said. “Seeking a bank loan from the IMF does not mean Bangladesh’s financial system is in undesirable condition.”

The IMF’s resilience and sustainability rely on caps cash at 150% of a country’s quota or, in Bangladesh’s circumstance, a maximum of $1 billion. read through much more

Bangladesh’s Everyday Star newspaper documented on Tuesday that all round, the nation desired $4.5 billion from the IMF, including for budgetary and equilibrium-of-payment assistance. go through more

The country’s economic mainstay is its export-oriented garments business, which is bracing for a slowdown as crucial shoppers like Walmart are saddled with backlog as inflation forces folks to prioritise essentials. study much more

Immediately after clothes, remittances are the 2nd greatest resource of foreign currency for Bangladesh, a nation of almost 170 million men and women.

Its overseas exchange reserves fell to $39.67 billion as of July 20 – sufficient for just above 5 months worthy of of imports – from $45.5 billion a calendar year previously.

Its July to May possibly present account deficit was $17.2 billion, as opposed with a deficit of $2.78 billion in the yr-previously period of time, as its trade deficit widened and remittances fell.

More reporting and writing by Krishna N. Das Modifying by Kim Coghill and David Holmes

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