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Dhaka calls for increased, unconditional grants for LDCs

UNB, Dhaka
Bangladesh has called for increased and unconditional grants from the international financial institutions, particularly from the World Bank, to assist the least developed countries (LDCs) in achieving the millennium development goals (MDGs).
Ismat Jahan, ambassador and permanent representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations, said this when she was making a statement on behalf of the 49 LDCs in a preparatory meeting for the follow-up international conference on financing for development. held at the UN headquarters in New York recendy.
According to a message received here yesterday, the follow-up conference will take place in Qatar, Doha from November 29 to December 2 this year. The preparatory session was focused on the governance of the international financial institutions and external debt.
Ambassador Jahan expressed deep concern over the fact that
during the last few years, the net flow of resources from the World Bank and IMF had become nega tive The figure reached negative by $25 billion in the year 2006
She added that die developing countries had been heavily engaged in self insurance by accumulating huge foreign currency reserves.
Jahan said that while these reserves were not yielding much benefit, developing countries were borrowing at a very high interest rate to finance their own development.
She called upon the international community to create a system, which would allow die LDCs to borrow from international creditors, at zero interest mark-up, against their own reserves.
Jahan also stressed the need for ensuring good governance in the international financial institutions. She expressed concern that die LDCs were seriously under-represented in the Bretton Woods Institutions (World Bank and IMF).
She called for a fundamental reform in the voting system and
accountability structure of tiiese institutions.
She invited the International Monetary Fund to undertake surveillance over all economies, in particular over die systemically important countries, which were issuing major reserve currencies.
On external debt, Bangladesh said that external debt burden greatly aggravated the poverty trap in die LDCs.
The ambassador further added that the indebted countries were home to majority of the world's poor. The governments of diose countries were servicing their debt at the cost of much-needed public expenditure on health, education, nutrition and social safety nets.
This affects the long-term productivity of dieir economies and their ability to be debt-free. She called upon the international community to write-off all outstanding debt of the LDCs without imposing any political condition.
Bangladesh urged that all future debt to the LDCs should be concessional and grant-based without any condition.