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Dhaka eyes $1.6b in aid this year

Saifur tells reporters

STAFF CORRESPONDENT
Finance Minister M Saifur Rahman yesterday said Bangladesh would go nowhere if the present political culture of conflicts is not changed.
Bangladesh could get $1.6 billion in aid from World Bank and Asian Development Bank this year by continuing financial reforms and ensuring good governance.
"But we have to improve our political culture to attain this," he said while exchanging views with the Economic Reporters Forum (ERF) at the Jatiya Press Club.
"When in power, we behave just the opposite way we do while not in power," he observed. "But this kind of culture is not good."
On the culture of hartal, Saifur said, "Let parliament be the place where we can settle our differences."
Donors would pump in $2 billion more for implementation of a three-year interim poverty reduction strategy paper (IPRSP), but that also depends on performance.
The minister said the lending
conditions of the donors are not as tough as our banks'.
Their conditions like good governance, fund-waste control, efficiency and other issues eventually go in favour of the nation.
Being pressed on the donors' recommendation for a small cabinet, Saifur quipped, "If you keep writing on thisissue, you will get my support."
The World Bank linked electionfunding with the widespread corruption in its recent review on Bangladesh.
But Saifur countered the observation saying that politics does not fall in the jurisdiction of World Bank and that candidates do raise election funds in all countries, even in the US.
On the government's mid-term review of the budget, he said that the spending and revenue earnings are close to the budget projections.
The government disbursed Tk 7,900 crore or 47 percent of the annual development programme in the last seven months and the aid utilisation was 27 percent, which is
Only 1 percent less than previous fiscal year's.
The government borrowings in the first seven months of the current fiscal year was Tk 98 crore compared to Tk 700 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.
Revenue earnings through the National Board of Revenue (NBR) went up by 12 percent (Tk 553 crore in 6 months) and non-NBR by 22 percent (Tk 451 crore in 6 months).
The minister said reserve, remittance and exports have also gone up. Export increased by 14 percent and imports by 15 percent. Of the Tk 5,206 crore imports, 43 percent was spent on capital machinery and 16 percent on raw materials. "This proves that the economy is dynamic.”