IDB to provide US$1.3b for Padma bridge

The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has agreed to provide Bangladesh with US$1.3 billion for construction of the proposed Padma Bridge.
The government of Bangladesh has also signed a loan agreement with the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) under which IDB would disburse 18 million US dollars as project loan for harnessing renewable solar energy.
Finance Minister Abul Mal Abdul Muhith said this in a report to the regular weekly cabinet meeting yesterday on the participation of a 3-member delegation led by him at the 34th IDB meeting.
Briefing reporters at the conference room of the Press Information Department (PID) on the resolutions adopted at the cabinet meeting, Prime Minister’s press secretary Abul Kalam Azad said there was only one agenda of the meeting: submission of the report on the participation of a three-member Bangladesh delegation headed by Abul Mal Abdul Muhith at the 34th annual Board of Governors meeting of the IDB held in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, on June 2 and 3.
Azad said while speaking at the first, out of three working sessions of the Board of Governors of the IDB on the inaugural day of the two-day meeting on June 2, Finance Minister Abul Mal Abdul Muhith called upon the member states of the 56-member IDB to enhance investment in the Bangladesh’s power, energy, communications and environment sectors as well as for development of social infrastructure of Bangladesh as part of its long-term investment.
He said that in his address, finance minister also mentioned reduction of capital supply and the volume of investment in the country against the backdrop of the global economic meltdown.
At the IDB meeting, Bangladesh also urged the member nations to ensure that no worker from Bangladesh loses his job in their countries, Azad quoted Muhith as apprising the cabinet meeting.
He added that the finance minister, in his speech, also highlighted the adverse impact of weather globally, including Bangladesh.
Muhith had also separate talks with Turkmenistani president Gurbanguly Berdy Mohammedov and IDB chairman Ahmed Mohammad Ali during his visit to Turkmenistan.
The next annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the IDB would be held in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, in June in 2010.
 
Courtesy of The Independent