Foreign aid disbursement to Bangladesh dropped 10 per cent to US$903.18 million in July-November period of the current fiscal year, officials said, though commitment hit a new high.
An unwarranted setback in the execution of Japanese-aided projects following the deadly militant attack on a café in Gulshan diplomatic zone that left 18 foreigners, including seven Japanese nationals, among a total of 28 people dead.
In the same period last financial year (FY), 2015-16, the foreign development partners had disbursed $1.0 billion in concessional loans and grants for bankrolling the country's development recipe.
According to the Economic Relations Division (ERD), the commitment of foreign assistance was, however, jumped to US$13.42 billion in the first five months of the current FY2017 from $972.25 million in the same period last FY.
Additional Secretary of the ERD Ms Farida Nasreen said the commitments were very high as the Russian government confirmed $11.38 billion worth of loans for the Rooppur Nuke Power Plant project early this fiscal year.
"The foreign aid disbursement has come down slightly as implementation of the Japanese-funded development projects is being delayed. Since some lives of Japanese people have been lost in the last militant attack in Gulshan, their consultants and contractors are not coming to Bangladesh in time, which affected the project works," Ms Nasreen told the FE.
She said the foreign-aid flow into Bangladesh was expected to pick up in the last half of the current FY2017 as security situation in the country is now stable for people both from home and abroad.
The development partners, including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, Japanese donor JICA, UK's DFID, and the Islamic Development Bank, disbursed concessional aid every year for the development of Bangladesh.
According to ERD calculations, the government received of total of $903.18 million in loans and grants in the July-November period. Out of the money, $806.66 million was received as loans while $96.52 million as grants from different bilateral and multilateral development partners.
Besides, the donors confirmed $13.42 billion worth of assistance in the first five months of the current FY, $12.78 billion as loans while the rest $63.78 million as grants.
Ms Nasreen said they were expecting around US$4.0 billion worth of concessional loan disbursement by the development partners within this FY2017 as the project-implementation rate will pick up during the last half of the fiscal.
Meanwhile, the ERD data showed Monday, the government repaid $406 million in interest and principal for its total debt during the period under review.
Out of the repayment amount, $318.66 million was principal while $87.82 million interest.
In the same period last FY, some $435.53 million worth of interest and principal of the outstanding loans was paid out, the statistics show.
The government received a total of $3.45 billion in foreign assistance (concessional loans and grants) in the last FY.
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