Foreign debt

File photo Under construction Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant

Foreign debt rising, $50 billion in pipeline, more $161 billion pledged

In addition, development partners have pledged another 161 billion USD. The ERD said due to the implementation of several mega projects for the past few years, the amount of foreign loans and foreign funds in the pipeline has been increasing.

This information was known from the latest report of the Economic Relations Department (ERD) of the Ministry of Finance. The ERD claims a large amount of money has been in the pipeline due to slow implementation of projects and making plans of mega projects.

When Md. Mostafizur Rahman was asked if any initiative had been taken to release the money from the pipeline, he said, "If the project implementation is slow, we hold meetings with the Project Directors (PDs). If there is any problem in releasing money in the project, we take steps. Big budgets are being taken to use the money in the pipeline. The higher the budget, the higher the cost of the money in the pipeline."

Since independence, a total of 1,013 billion USD has been disbursed to various projects from the development partners.

ERD said, the World Bank has been at the forefront of lending to Bangladesh on various projects since independence, despite the recent setbacks, which is 36 percent of the total debt. After that, ADB is in the second position with giving 23 percent loan. Of the total foreign loans, 18 percent came from Japan, 8 percent from China, one percent each from South Korea and IDB, and 12 percent from other development partners.