Half of promised foreign loans unutilised

Development partners have been promising on an average around $6 billion in loans every year for the last few years, but Bangladesh has been able to spend only around $3 billion a year.

The latest Economic Relations Division (ERD) statistics indicate that by the end of 2014-15 FY (Jun 30) the amount of promised foreign aid was around $22 billion, the highest ever.
 
The ERD’s Foreign Aid Budget and Accounts wing chief Farida Nasrin, however, does not think this amount, stuck in the pipeline, as 'something huge'.
 
“The funds in pipeline are not huge considering Bangladesh’s debt capacity,” she told bdnews24.com.
 

Around $19.5 billion worth promised loans were in the pipeline until June 2014. Another $2.2 billion was added to that in the year until June 2015.
 
Nasrin, an additional secretary, says she believes the size of the promised loan in the pipeline will come down if the government agencies (ministries and divisions) can spend 20 percent of its allocation.
 
Bangladesh's largest source of foreign assistance is the World Bank (WB), says
ERD Additional Secretary Kazi Shofiqul Azam.
 
“We have been able to disburse over 20 percent funds allocated against the WB-endorsed projects. The amount in pipeline will be manageable if this spending rate can be maintained,” Azam, who heads the ERD’s WB wing, told bdnews24.com. 
 
Nasrin and Azam both stressed on increasing capacity of those implementing projects if the promised loans had to be fully utilised.