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Fund to support low income countries like Bangladesh with trade
financing to help them face the challenges of the global recession.
He also called upon the LICs to raise their voice to get a fair share
of the US$ 1.1 trillion fund, which the developed nations recently
pledged for bailing out the recession-hit nations. 'If you [IMF]
are thinking simply of supporting a country's BoP (Balance of Payment)
deficit, then you are mistaken,' Muhith told the inaugural session of
an international workshop on Global Financial Crisis at Sonargaon
Hotel. He said Bangladesh does not have a serious BoP problem, but
the crisis lies in trade financing as it has to import economic
essentials like food, fuel and fertilizer with financing at higher
prices from the external markets. 'There is enormous global reserve
and that could be used for trade financing,' he said, stressing the
need for changing attitudes of institutions like IMF with the present
day demands. Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of the country, and
UN Economic and Social Commission for the Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)
jointly organized the 4-day workshop on ' Strengthening the Response
to the Global Financial Crisis in Asia-Pacific: The Role of Monetary,
Fiscal and External Debt Policies.' Officials from Finance
Ministries and central banks of the region, and representatives from
UN organizations, World Bank, IMF, ADB and NGOs are taking part at the
workshop to share experiences and ideas on how they have responded to
the global crisis and would face in the future individually and
collectively. Finance Minister Muhith said countries like
Bangladesh, facing challenges of poverty alleviation, protection of
social investment and infrastructure development, need some resources
from outside. 'We want to see how the trillion dollar fund is
distributed to the benefit of the LICs,' he said, urging the LICs to
raise their voice in getting a fair share of the fund to support them
keep up with economic growth, protecting the social investment, in
infrastructure development and facing the new challenge of climate
change adaptation. He also called upon the participants of the
workshop to give some thought on the issues to draw attention of the
developed countries in these regards. In his keynote address,
Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman stressed the need for faster
growth of intra-regional exports of primary, intermediate and finished
goods as well as capital goods to reduce dependence on the debt-driven
demand markets of North America and Europe. He recommended
development of regional bond market to channel regional savings into
real sector development instead of investing the savings in the
complex western financial markets. The BB Governor called upon the
nations in the Asia-Pacific to urge the more affluent emerging
economies to broaden windows of concessional lending to the
governments of lower income economies. He also urged the nations to
present in the UN, IMF, World Bank and other global forum a unified
front favouring a new global financial architecture that ensures
global financial and economic stability.
