The government found it difficult to get foreign loans and grants as both commitments and disbursement by the international lenders and development partners showed a declining trend over the months of the current fiscal year of 2013-14, officials of the Economic Relation Division said. They said that commitments to provide loans and grants to Bangladesh and disbursements dropped in the first four months of the current fiscal year.
Both the commitments and disbursement dropped in the period mainly because of political instability prevailing in the country and slower progress in implementing annual development programme.
According to the ERD data released on Thursday, commitments made by the lenders and donors declined by $449.02 million in July-October of FY 2013-14 compared with that in the same period of the previous year.
In July-October, lenders and donors committed to give Bangladesh $1,326.11 million as loans and grants which was $1,775.13 million in the same period of last year.
In the period, disbursement of foreign loans and grants also declined by $232.8 million compared with that in the same time of the last year.
In the first four months of the FY 2013-14, development partners and lenders disbursed $576.80
million in loans and grants which was $809.60 million in the same time of the last year.
Out of the $576.80 million, lenders disbursed $432.46 million in loans while donors provided $144.34 million as grants, according to the data.
ERD officials said that lenders and donors wanted to see proper utilisation of their loans and grants.
‘They became cautious in making commitments and disbursing loans and grants as proper utilisation of resources became uncertain due to political unrest in the country,’ an ERD official said.
In addition, ADP implementation also remained very slow though it was expected that ADP expenditure would be higher in the election year, he said.
Among the lenders, Japan topped the position in disbursing loans as the country provided $157 million, followed by World Bank with $120 million and Asian Development Bank with $108 million.
In the period, India disbursed $50 million in grants and UNDP disbursed $47 million.
-With New Age input
