The government is desperately trying to contact the five big and fast- emerging economies -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- to become a shareholder of the BRICS Bank (now known as the New Development Bank).
Bangladesh has not been invited yet to be a member of the new bank, which is viewed as a competitor of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
A wing of the Economic Relations Division (ERD) has been assigned to contact the BRICS member-countries to know the modalities of becoming a shareholder of the bank.
Earlier, Finance Minister AMA Muhith had asked the officials concerned to contact the bank's founding members.
However, economic analysts have given their varied opinion on the government's move to join the NDB. Some of them spoke in favour of joining since the bank might emerge as a substitute for the Bretton-Woods institutions -- the World Bank and the IMF.
However, some others said Bangladesh should not be ambitious right at this moment on the issue as the BRICS members might not be willing to include Bangladesh as a member of the bank considering the small size of its economy.
The five countries will hold major stake -- 55 per cent -- of the bank and the rest 45 per cent will be held by other developing states.
Professor Dr Moinul Islam at the department of Economics at the Chittagong University said Bangladesh's joining the bank might help it avail soft loans for development of the country's infrastructure.
The BRICS Bank might start project funding sometime in 2016.
"We are subjected to lots of conditions while we take cheap loans form the WB and the IMF. So this might not happen at least with the BRICS Bank," Dr Islam, a former president of the Bangladesh Economic Association, said.
Dr Islam said some of the strings attached to loans by the IMF or the WB in many cases are quite tough and times those tend to affect the common men's interests.
He, however, said even if Bangladesh fails to become a shareholder of the BRICS Bank, there will remain scopes for getting long-term loans at cheaper rates of interest.
Dr MA Taslim, professor at the department of Economics at the Dhaka University said the government should not be in a haste to join the bank as many large economies are showing interest in it.
"In my view, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and even Saudi Arabia might get preference from the sponsors," he argued.
He said the Finance Minister has already disclosed to the media about Bangladesh's interest to join the bank although it did not get any formal invitation from the BRICS grouping.
Mustafa K Mujeri, director-general at the state-run Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) said the government's move is good as Bangladesh needed alternative sources of cheap loans.
"If it really happens, Bangladesh will get another window for funds," Dr Mujeri, also a former chief economist at the Bangladesh Bank, said
"Bangladesh could afford a contribution of $1.0-$2.0 billion to become a shareholder of the bank. But if the amount is bigger than that then it could be a problem," he said.
The BRICS Bank has now US$ 50 billion paid-up capital funded by the five countries and later the capital will be raised to $100 billion.
He said there were such types of moves by many countries earlier but these did not click. He said the move for south-south cooperation did not yield the expected results.
However, ERD sources Saturday told the FE that Bangladesh's missions had contacted the five BRICS countries, but they are yet to get a reply.
He, however, said they might get replies this week.
In July, the new bloc announced the creation of the new $100 billion NDB.
The bank is aimed at lending money on easy terms to developing countries for investments.
