Japanese mission due Sept 12 to review ongoing projects

FE Team | Published: September 07, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

FE Report
A Japanese mission will arrive in Dhaka on September 12 to explore future Japanese cooperation to Bangladesh and review ongoing projects being funded by the bilateral donor, official sources said.
A senior Economic Relations Division official said the mission during its two-day visit to Dhaka will consult with the government to plan the future strategy on official development assistance (ODA) to Bangladesh.
He further said that the future support from the Japanese government would depend on the project executing performance of the government agencies as the mission would also review the development of the ongoing Japan-funded projects here.
The mission might sit with some ministries including power, communications and local government and rural development during its visit, the sources said.
According to ERD statistics, Japan, the largest bilateral donor of Bangladesh, provided a total of US$ 6.768 billion aid including grants and loan to Bangladesh government until last fiscal 2006-07 against its total commitment of around $ 7.33 billion.
Out of the total $ 6.768 billion assistance, $3.246 billion was provided as grant to the Bangladesh government.
Meanwhile, Japanese government has written off the principal amount and interest of 36 project loans signed before June 1989, for which, Bangladesh will not be required to repay about $1.46 billion, the ERD data has shown.
The ERD official told the FE that the mission would be the first to visit Dhaka since the assumption of the present interim government to its seat.
"Earlier, the Japan government was moving slowly from the last quarter of past calendar year 2006 due to political turmoil in the country. The largest bilateral donor also proceeded slowly with their proposed loan to the country. After taking massive reform works of the present caretaker government, the Japan government again resumed it's usual operation from the last couple of months," he said.
With the political development, the Japanese donor agency - Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) - has resumed their activities for providing three big loans for three development projects in Bangladesh, the ERD official stated..
Of the three aid packages, the JBIC will provide $144 million for setting up a 360-megawatt (MW) Haripur power plant, $104 million for improving the Dhaka-Chittagong Railway communication and $43 million for small-scale water resources management.
The official informed the FE that the loan deals might be signed with the government within the current month September.