The focus of the Bangladesh Development Forum (BDF) meeting slated for May 17-18 will fall on availing anti-poverty loans and the government will have to commit time-bound reform measures to convince the donors.

If everything goes well, $1.9

billion may be available under the interim poverty reduction strategy paper (IPRSP) -- $600 million from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), $300 million from the World Bank (WB) and the rest from the individual donor countries. The IMF and the WB may increase their contribution by another $200 million depending on the outcome

of negotiations.

This is the second time that the BDF meeting is going to be held in Dhaka, the first being in 1997.

Typical issues like macroeconomic situation, corruption, law and order, formation of an independent human rights commission and social safety net will be discussed under the IPRSP.

So far, the government is in a comfortable position regarding the macroeconomic situation. However, it will have to sweat it out on the other issues. Specially, the European Union and the UNDP are likely to come down heavily on the human rights situation.

The IMF's major condition is to float exchange rate to make it market oriented. On the other hand, the WB has handed a nationalised commercial bank (NCB) reform matrix to the government.

According to this matrix, the government will have to privatise one of the four NCBs and transfer management of another to private hands by 2003. By 2004, another NCB will have to be privatised and another's management changed. Simultaneously, the banks will have to go for a 30 per cent retrenchment.

A code of conduct will have to be formulated for government officials and members of the parliament.

The government looks to be in a comfortable position regarding the conditions as it has already agreed to implement them. An understanding in this regard was achieved during the wrap-up meeting with the IMF last month. The government may formally write the IMF about its intentions to execute the reforms.