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IMF raises ceiling for hard-term borrowing

Rejaul Karim Byron
The government will now be able to borrow up to $5.75 billion in hard-term loans from external sources upon fulfilling various conditions of the International Monetary Fund.
The lender has raised the ceiling by $ 1.25 billion from $4.5 billion, which was set for a period until June next year, according to an IMF report released on Friday.
Under the IMF's Extended Credit Facility (ECF) loan programme, the ceiling was $3.25 billion until June this year when the government took non-concessional credit worth $2.86 billion from external sources.
Hard-term or non-concessional borrowing entails higher interest and less maturity period.
The government had requested the IMF in September to raise the ceiling, and the lender gave a go-ahead to the proposal on November 27, a finance ministty official said.
To improve the oversight of nonconcessional borrowing, the government revised the terms of reference for the cabinet's standing committee on nonconcessional borrowing in June last which was one of the conditions of the ECF loan, the report said.
The government with the technical support of the World Bank has taken an initiative -- Debt Management Performance Assessment - to cut the risk of hard-term loans.
The government has also committed in its Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP) with the IMF that it will take the non-concessional external loans for projects with a high development impact.
The government also said projects in
power, transportation and telecommunications and other infrastructures will receive the highest priority for nonconcessional financing.
The government will form a technical committee to assess which government agencies will take non-concessional loans and what the impacts will be, according to the IMF report.
The government will also finalise a medium-term debt management strategy by March next year.
The government has made a good number of commitments to streamline public debt and minimise wastages.
In the MEFP, the government said it will continue to contain fuel and electricity subsidies. The government will go for a price adjustment when the difference of local and international oil prices exceeds Tk 10 per litre.
The government also said it has suggested a number of reforms to cut wastages by Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC).
The government will hire professional staff for financial management of BPC by March 2014 and adopt automated financial reporting software for the state-owned enterprise.
The government will also appoint a global firm, in association with a local company, to conduct a financial audit for BPC for fiscal 2012-2013, to be completed by September 2014, which is a new condition of the IMF for its ECF loans.
It also committed that the loans taken from state banks for state-owned enterprises will be repaid through timely budgetary transfer.
In June, the government has repaid such loans Tk 5,900 crore to the state banks through bonds.