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The deputy managing director (DMD) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Antoinette Monsio Sayeh, arrived in the capital on Saturday for a five-day visit.
The high IMF official will stay in the capital till January 18. During her visit, Sayeh will meet with the prime minister, finance minister, governor of Bangladesh Bank and other senior officials of the government, according to BSS.
Finance Ministry officials said Sayeh came to Dhaka from Delhi after completing her Indian visit.
The IMF deputy managing director is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on January 16. The IMF DMD will visit Padma Bridge on January 18.
Sayeh will report to the IMF headquarters regarding the $4.5 billion loan for Bangladesh to combat the global recession and other situations arising from the current global condition.
The report will be presented before the IMF board meeting. Based on this, the process of providing the loan will be finalised.
The government has reached an in-principle agreement on the loan with the IMF. Now, only the formalities are waiting for completion.
Some conditions have already been implemented. The government will seek some time to implement some other IMF conditions.
The international financing agency would provide the $4.5 billion loan to Bangladesh in three categories. The IMF will provide 822.82 million SDR under Extended Credit Facility (ECF) which would be entirely interest-free.
The IMF will provide another 1,645.64 million SDR to Bangladesh under Extended Fund Facility (EFF) with an interest rate of floating SDRi+1 per cent while another 1.0 billion SDR under its Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) with an interest rate of floating SDRi+0.75 per cent.
The loan will be available in seven instalments while the interest rate would be floating as the average interest rate would be 2.2 per cent on the overall loan amount as per the SDR interest rate.
The first instalment of the loan worth 352.35 million SDR or around $447.48 million will be available in February while the next six equal instalments would be 519 million SDR or around $659.18 million each.