The Asian Development Bank (ADB)'s review of nearly US$13 billion- funded projects in Bangladesh has been postponed due to the country-wide deadly student protests against the quota system in government jobs, officials said on Monday.
The review meeting will be held after normalisation of the country's present situation, a senior official of the Economic Relations Division (ERD) told the FE.
The three-day meeting was scheduled to be held on July 22-24 in Dhaka.
The Manila-based lender was supposed to sit with the ERD and the project implementing agencies of the government on Monday in Dhaka.
Bangladesh has gone through a deadly unrest over the last 6-7 days due to the anti-quota protest of the students across the country.
The situation worsened on Thursday last and the government imposed curfew from Friday mid-night.
The government also announced public holiday for three days up to Tuesday.
Another ERD official said all the ongoing ADB-funded projects will be reviewed at the upcoming tripartite meeting.
The problems on way to implementation are expected to be removed at the meeting, he added.
Currently, the Manila-based lender has made a commitment of nearly $13 billion worth of funds for 79 ongoing projects in the public sector.
ADB is the second largest multilateral development partner of Bangladesh in terms of its amount of foreign aid for implementing different projects and programmes after the independence.
ADB is bankrolling some mega projects in Bangladesh including the Dohazari-Ramu-Cox's Bazar railway line, Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit Development Investment Project (Line 5, Southern Route), and South Asia Sub-regional Economic Cooperation Dhaka-Northwest Corridor Road Project, Phase 2 (Tranche 3).
In July-April period last fiscal year (FY) 2023-24, the Manila-based lender ADB disbursed $1.499 billion worth of assistance and $1.787 billion in FY2023 to Bangladesh, ERD data showed.
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