BD sees higher foreign aid in Jul-Aug

The foreign aid flow to Bangladesh during the first two months (July-August) of the current fiscal year (FY18) continued its encouraging trend as the aid disbursement during the period was $208.8 million higher than the corresponding period of the last fiscal year (FY17), reports UNB.

According to the latest data of the Economic Relations Division (ERD), the overall foreign aid disbursement in July-August this year totalled $492.10 million against $283.30 million in the corresponding period of the last fiscal year.

Out of the totalled disbursed amount during the period, the portion of loan was $490 million while the portion of grant was $2.1 million.

The ERD data shows that of the total disbursed amount of $283.3 million aid in July-August in the last fiscal year, the portion of loan was $257.30 million while that of grant was $26 million.

Against the disbursement, the overall foreign aid commitment for the month of July-August this year was $725.2 million of which $662.7 million came as commitment for loans while the rest of $62.5 million as grants.

However, the foreign aid commitment for July-August period of the last fiscal year was much higher as it then totalled $1192.1 million including $21.9 million in grants and $1170 million in loans.

During this July-August, Bangladesh made a repayment of $193.1 million including $150.7 million in principal amount and $42.4 million in interests.

On the other hand, the country made a repayment of $163.5 million in July-August period of the last year including $123.1 million in principal amount and $40.3 million in interests.

Talking to UNB, an official at the ERD said that the target of getting foreign aid commitment this fiscal year is $6.0 billion whereas the target of realising foreign aid disbursement is $5.555 billion.

According to the ERD, the commitments of foreign aid increased to a record high of $17.86 billion in FY17, 153.33 per cent higher than that of the corresponding period of the previous fiscal year ($7.05 billion).

The increase was mainly due to the single largest $11.36 billion state credit commitment by the Russian government for the Rooppur nuclear power plant project.

During the FY16, a total of US$7.05 billion of external assistance was committed.

In the FY16, a total amount of $3.56 billion was disbursed of which $530.56 million was grant and $ 3033.03 million was loan. Of the total amount, food aid and project aid are $31.87 million and $3531.72 million respectively. Multilateral donors disbursed lion share of the total disbursement amounting to $2322.28 million and bilateral donor disbursed $1241.31 million.

Up to June 30, 2016 a total of about $99.20 billion of external assistance was committed to Bangladesh. According to the classification by purposes the share of food aid is $6.88 billion, commodity aid is $11.07 billion, project aid is $77.67 billion and budget support is $3.58 billion of the total commitments.

 For the period since independence up to June 30, 2016, a total amount of about $69.15 billion of foreign aid was disbursed, of which $26.50 billion is grant and $42.65 billion is loan. Of the total amount, $6.87 billion as food, $10.91 billion as commodity, $47.81 billion as project aid and $3.57 billion as budget support were disbursed.