The executive board of the International Monetary Fund yesterday approved the fourth and fifth instalments of its loan for Bangladesh, a top-up of the original $4.7 billion credit by about $800 million with a six-month extension.
Funds include $1.3 billion from IMF
These talks follow discussions held during the 2025 IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington late April
The government has yet to reach a consensus with the International Monetary Fund on adopting a market-based exchange rate -- the only remaining condition for releasing the fourth and fifth instalments of the $4.7 billion loan.
The government and the International Monetary Fund are set to meet again today for another round of negotiations over the release of the fourth and fifth tranches of a $4.7 billion loan programme.
It is worth looking beyond the immediate economic cost of the IMF loan
Led by Finance Adviser Salehuddin Ahmed, the Bangladesh delegation held a series of meetings with IMF representatives in Washington.
The International Monetary Fund has no major disagreement with Bangladesh over reforms to the National Board of Revenue, one of the conditions set by the lender for the fourth and fifth instalments of the $4.7 billion loan.
IMF left Bangladesh without any decision on the release of next tranches of a loan.
Record price hikes mark an anti-people policy shift
The rise in fuel prices is an illogical decision that will only harm ordinary citizens and fail to deal with the root causes of the crisis that Bangladesh is currently facing.
Fighting tax evasion, preventing trade-based illicit financial outflows and ending the culture of money laundering and loan defaults is a much more sustainable solution to adding to foreign exchange reserves than taking foreign loans on interest.
Bangladesh has to prioritise its own interest while taking loan from the development partners, said Mushtaq Khan, professor of Economics at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
The International Monetary Fund is expecting a formal request for a loan from Bangladesh soon to provide a buffer to the delicate foreign currency reserves amid global economic volatility even though the government remains in two minds about it.
