The World Bank and IMF in Istanbul assured Bangladesh of providing swift financial assistance under flexible conditions to tackle the global economic recession and impacts of climate change, Finance Minister AMA Muhith said yesterday.

"We have a few achievements. Flexible conditions on loans is one of them," he told reporters during a press conference at the Zia International Airport on his return from the World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) annual meetings in TUrkey and Commonwealth Finance Ministers' meeting in Cyprus.

Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman, Economic Relations Division (ERD) Secretary Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, Finance Secretary Mohammad Tareq, among others, accompanied the finance minister during the visit from September 30 to October?.

Muhith held meetings with a number of high officials of the WB and IMF and finance ministers of Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and India. He talked about overseas employment opportunity, trade and power. He said Bangladesh sought additional resources from the WB and IMF in Turkey to fight the global economic meltdown.

Asked if Bangladesh was assured of additional assistance, the finance minister said, "We have just placed our demands. They did not give any specific assurance instantly but we will continue the discussion in this regard."

A joint mission of the WB and IMF is soon coming to Bangladesh to discuss providing assistance to the poverty alleviation programme in the country, he said adding. "Though there was no problem in our balance of payments, the IMF has already provided us with loan of $300 million."

Atiur Rahman said the significant achievement in the Turkey meeting was that these lending agencies from now on would allow transfer of funds from one project to another in cases where fund of a particular project could not be used.

Earlier, they used to withdraw the fund if it could not be used in a particular project, he said adding, " There is $1.7 million in the pipeline that Bangladesh could not use. As the WB has now agreed allowing transfer of fund from one project to another, we shall be able to use it."

The finance minister said the focus of the WB and IMF annual meetings was the recovery from the global economic depression.

"The recovery process has already started. But to speed up the process the meeting decided to continue the stimulus packages declared by various nations," he said and continued that though the lending agencies increased the assistance in the wake of the global meltdown, the Least Developed Countries (LDC) like Bangladesh did not receive any support.

"The condition of the 48 LDCs is very poor, but nothing has been earmarked for them," he said adding that they have informed the WB and IMF about the matter.

On his meeting with Indian finance minister, Muhith said he talked about the prime minister's visit to India.

A meeting between the Joint Economic Commission of Bangladesh and Turkey will also be held soon to expand trade and economic relations, he said.

The Bangladesh delegation met the Saudi finance minister and discussed enhancing Saudi cooperation from its development fund.

Muhith said, "We also talked about employment opportunities in the UAE and Saudi Arabia."