Anisul Islam Noor :
The Ministry of Finance (MoF) has sought Tk 3000 crore from Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) as condition to providing state guarantee for credits of International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC), the wing of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), sources said.
A BPC official said, seeking such a huge amount of money by MoF from another government organisation as a prerequisite for giving state guarantee will set a new phenomenon in the country.
The BPC owes the exchequer some Tk 263 billion as it took the money to foot oil bills over the past 15 years, he said.
The official said, the payment is sought from the hefty profit that the corporation has been making in oil trading in recent years.
Earlier, the MoF had given such guarantee to BPC to foot oil-import bills without seeking any money from the corporation, he added.
The state-run corporation, which never had earned profit over the past 14 years since fiscal year (FY) 2001-02, started picking profits since October 2014 by cashing in on a global slump.
BPC’s spends on import of fuel oil was more than halved in FY’16 from what it had to spend two years back.
The import cost stood at $1.92 billion (Tk 15,000 billion) in the last fiscal year as compared to $3.46 billion in FY’15 and $4.69 billion in FY’14.
With the profit money, BPC has already cleared all outstanding dues with banks, paid outstanding value-added tax (VAT) and import duties to national exchequer and freight charges to shippers worth Tk 71 billion, said a senior BPC official.
But, it paid only Tk 10 billion in June 2015 to the MoF and since then, it had not paid further to the ministry. And this lag prompted the ministry to seek the payment.
Officials said the guarantee from the MoF is prerequisite to borrowing from the ITFC, the lending arm of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB).
BPC already has sought to borrow around $500 million from the ITFC for the upcoming Hijri year starting November 2016, they said.
The corporation could increase the loan amount by up to $200 million more from the ITFC to cover any contingency fund requirement, if any, according to the negotiation.
It has agreed to receive the loan at what ITFC calls a “mark-up rate” of 3.90 per cent, lower by 0.30 per cent from the previous year’s mark-up at 4.20 per cent, they said.
Charging interest rate like conventional banking system is forbidden under Islamic financing. The ITFC will charge 0.20 per cent charge on the letter of credit (LC) facility from BPC next year, which is 0.05 per cent lower than the current year’s rate, he added.
ITFC is currently the main external lender to BPC to foot oil-import bills.
The BPC usually utilises ITFC loan to import crude oil from Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), to refine in its wholly-owned subsidiary Eastern Refinery Ltd (ERL) in Chittagong.
The Ministry of Finance (MoF) has sought Tk 3000 crore from Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) as condition to providing state guarantee for credits of International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC), the wing of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), sources said.
A BPC official said, seeking such a huge amount of money by MoF from another government organisation as a prerequisite for giving state guarantee will set a new phenomenon in the country.
The BPC owes the exchequer some Tk 263 billion as it took the money to foot oil bills over the past 15 years, he said.
The official said, the payment is sought from the hefty profit that the corporation has been making in oil trading in recent years.
Earlier, the MoF had given such guarantee to BPC to foot oil-import bills without seeking any money from the corporation, he added.
The state-run corporation, which never had earned profit over the past 14 years since fiscal year (FY) 2001-02, started picking profits since October 2014 by cashing in on a global slump.
BPC’s spends on import of fuel oil was more than halved in FY’16 from what it had to spend two years back.
The import cost stood at $1.92 billion (Tk 15,000 billion) in the last fiscal year as compared to $3.46 billion in FY’15 and $4.69 billion in FY’14.
With the profit money, BPC has already cleared all outstanding dues with banks, paid outstanding value-added tax (VAT) and import duties to national exchequer and freight charges to shippers worth Tk 71 billion, said a senior BPC official.
But, it paid only Tk 10 billion in June 2015 to the MoF and since then, it had not paid further to the ministry. And this lag prompted the ministry to seek the payment.
Officials said the guarantee from the MoF is prerequisite to borrowing from the ITFC, the lending arm of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB).
BPC already has sought to borrow around $500 million from the ITFC for the upcoming Hijri year starting November 2016, they said.
The corporation could increase the loan amount by up to $200 million more from the ITFC to cover any contingency fund requirement, if any, according to the negotiation.
It has agreed to receive the loan at what ITFC calls a “mark-up rate” of 3.90 per cent, lower by 0.30 per cent from the previous year’s mark-up at 4.20 per cent, they said.
Charging interest rate like conventional banking system is forbidden under Islamic financing. The ITFC will charge 0.20 per cent charge on the letter of credit (LC) facility from BPC next year, which is 0.05 per cent lower than the current year’s rate, he added.
ITFC is currently the main external lender to BPC to foot oil-import bills.
The BPC usually utilises ITFC loan to import crude oil from Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), to refine in its wholly-owned subsidiary Eastern Refinery Ltd (ERL) in Chittagong.
