Staff Reporter :
Bangladesh witnessed a 47 per cent jump in disbursements of foreign assistance that have surpassed the $8 billion mark in 11 months of the current fiscal year for the first time.
The development partners released $8.42 billion in July-May period, which was $5.72 billion in the same time of the last fiscal year, according to the latest report of the Economic Relations Division (ERD).
The government expects that the amount will reach $9 billion after the end of the current fiscal year.
ERD officials put such a record foreign fund release down to increased use of external loans in some megaprojects that are nearing completion, more budget support provided by different development partners and funds for purchasing Covid-19 vaccines.
The foreign assistance disbursal will continue to grow after the end of June as the government has a target to use $10.8 billion in the current fiscal year, they said.
The foreign fund disbursements amounted to $7.95 billion in 2020-21 fiscal year and $7.38 billion in 2019-20. The external assistance release always remained below $7 billion in all the previous years, according to the ERD.
ERD officials said last week they signed a deal with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for a budget support of $250 million. Such a fund gets released shortly after the agreement is signed.
Moreover, large sums of foreign loans will be spent on several development projects, which will bring the foreign aid disbursements closer to the target.
In the meantime, according to the ADP progress report as of May by the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED), the use of foreign loans for development projects is on the rise towards the end of the current fiscal year, with Tk9230 crore spent in June alone.
The IMED expects that the same amount or more of foreign loans will be spent on various development projects in June.
The utilisation of foreign aid stood at $50,575 crore during July-May, up from Tk39,498 crore during the same period last fiscal year, according to data from the IMED.
ERD officials said $1.14 in budget support and $956 million for vaccine purchases were released as of May this fiscal year.
The funds came from the World Bank, ADB, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Jica, Korea and the OPEC Fund for International Development.
