Finance
ECNEC Prime Minister urges foreign fund collection
Dhaka, June 21: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has directed the authorities concerned to focus on raising funds from domestic sources as well as foreign funds to ensure financing of the project.
The Prime Minister mentioned if the trend of implementation of foreign financed projects on time increases, the disbursement of foreign loans will increase, which will actually enrich the foreign exchange reserve situation.
She gave this instruction at the meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) at the Sherbanglanagar NEC meeting room in the capital on Tuesday. The Prime Minister presided over the meeting.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, Planning Minister MA Mannan said the Prime Minister has asked concerned authorities including Economic Relations Department (ERD), NBR and Finance Department to ensure that more foreign funds and foreign loans are used for financing development projects.
Mannan said development partners such as the World Bank, ADB and JICA are ready to provide Bangladesh with budgetary support and other assistance. But the government will take assistance only as per its needs and capacity.
At that time, State Minister for Planning Dr. Shamsul Alam said that more than 50 billion US dollars in foreign aid is currently in the pipeline.
The Minister of Planning said that the final approval of a total of 16 projects was given in the ECNEC meeting on Tuesday, the implementation cost of which has been estimated at Tk 24,362 crore 14 lakh. Out of this, government funding is Tk 12,873 crore 11 lakh, foreign financing is Tk 11,472 crore 88 lakh and the organization's own financing is Tk 16 crore 15 lakh. Out of the 16 approved projects, eight are new and eight are revised projects.
Referring to the infrastructure development project of BCS Tax Academy, the Planning Minister said that the Prime Minister instructed the concerned agencies to use less land in the construction of this infrastructure.
State Minister for Planning Dr. Shamsul Alam said that the government can do its best in using foreign financing as the interest rate of foreign loans is lower than domestic sources.
He said Bangladesh's foreign debt to GDP ratio is still low compared to other countries in the world, due to which we can take more foreign debt.
