IMF assures active support to Bangladesh growth strategy

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IMF deputy managing director Takatoshi Kato has assured Bangladesh of their active engagement in a fashion commensurate with the country strategy for economic growth, reports UNB.
"Government (of Bangladesh) will seriously keep in view the urgent need to contain the rising inflationary trend through appropriate policies as the government finds appropriate," he hoped, in a meeting with Finance Adviser Dr Mirza Azizul Islam in Washington on Sunday.
The adviser had meetings with senior executives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank on the sidelines of the IMF-WB annual meetings.
Kato expressed IMF's willingness to remain actively engaged with any suitable form that the government considers appropriate and offered strong support to the strategy for growth and poverty reduction.
Appreciating the government's commitment to ensure maintaining and sustaining macroeconomic growth, he gave the assurance in response to the Finance Adviser's call to support implementation of needed policy and institutional reforms.
Dr Aziz reaffirmed the government's commitment to maintain macro-economic stability and keep budget deficit within the level projected in this year's budget.
He said that through appropriate policies the government would address the emerging external shocks resulting mainly from escalation of prices of imported commodities especially those of petroleum products in the international market.
"The policy mix to be adopted by the government, especially in the aftermath of the recent floods, will target to achieve the twin objectives of economic growth as well as the imperative need to contain inflation keeping in view the needs of the poor."
He expressed the commitment of the government to pursue its own development strategy and policies to effectively address internal and external constraints in a way consistent with its goals of maintaining macro-economic stability, accelerating economic growth and poverty reduction.
The finance adviser also had a meeting with World Bank vice president for South Asia Department Praful C Patel, taking stock of the existing assistance portfolio as well as the possible aid flows to Bangladesh during the remainder of the current fiscal year.
He informed the World Bank executive that the utilisation of aid during this fiscal year has far exceeded all the previous records due to intensive efforts by the present government.
The assistance should be scaled up within the framework of CAS (Country Assistance Strategy) in the form of budget support rather than project related aid, he said.
Dr Aziz called for the scaled up aid inflows to pro-poor growth sectors such as agriculture, water resources management, infrastructure, education and heath.
He briefly highlighted the ongoing reform agenda of the government cutting across both political and economic governance.
Patel expressed full support to the reform efforts of the present government and hoped these reforms would pave the way to scale up international assistance and more effective use of both internal and external resources to meet development needs of the country.
He assured the finance adviser that the World Bank would strengthen its engagement with government in implementation of government's own reform agenda.
He also reiterated the Work Bank's intention to support the sectors identified by the government in its own development strategy.