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Bank to counter the second round of global economic meltdown, a
senior official said on Monday. 'The hard-term loan will be
utilised for weathering the impact of the global economic crisis,'
said Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, secretary of the economic relation
division of ministry of finance. 'We have accepted the proposed
loan as the country has already been affected by the second round
impact of the global economic recession,' he told Reuters. An
official of the ADB said the $500 million credit has to be repaid
within five years with a three-year grace period and the LIBOR
(London inter bank offered rate) based interest rate will be
around 2.8 per cent. The ADB already confirmed giving $500 million
to the government from its 'Counter-Cyclical Support Facility Fund'
to face the adverse impact of the global economic recession on
Bangladesh's economy. He said the government might utilise part of
the fund to support the export sectors, which had been hard hit by
the global economic recession. Bangladesh's exports grew 10.3 per
cent to $15.56 billion in the 2008/09 fiscal year that ended in
June, the lowest growth in six years, data showed, reflecting slowing
demand as a result of the global economic slump. In the current
fiscal year's budget the government has a target of $350 million as
budget-support credit from different donors to minimise the fiscal
deficit.
