Finance Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali on Thursday said he was not worried about the foreign exchange reserves position as he considers the current stock enough.
"Why are you thinking about the reserves?" he told journalists, replying to a question after a loan-signing event in Dhaka, and suggested not to be worried over the present reserves position.
The country's forex reserves (as per BPM6) were US$18.64 billion last month (May), the central bank data showed.
Under two separate loan deals signed Thursday, South Korea will provide $815 million worth of loans to Bangladesh for constructing the Kalurghat railway-cum-road bridge in Chattogram.
Economic Relations Division (ERD) Secretary Shahriar Kader Siddiky and the Chairman and CEO of Korean EXIM Bank signed the agreements for bankrolling the project.
The Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF) will provide $724.73 million and the Economic Development Promotion Facility (EDPF) will provide $90.18 million.
Korean EXIM Bank will charge 0.01 per cent interest for its $724.73 million loans while 1.0 per cent for the $90.18 million loan.
The maturity of the EDCF loan will be 40.5 years, including a grace period of 15.5 years. On the other hand, the maturity of the EDPF loan will be 30 years, including 7.0 years of grace period.
Finance Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali, State Minister Waseqa Ayesha, State Minister for Railways Md Zillul Hakim, and Korean Ambassador in Bangladesh Park Young-sik were present at the event.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Railway (BR) has recently undertaken a project at a cost of Tk 115.66 billion and sought approval from the Planning Commission.
Of the cost, the Railway has proposed to spend Tk 44.37 billion from the internal resources and the remaining Tk 71.28 billion (as project loan) from the Korean lender.
According to BR, it will start the "Construction of rail-cum-road bridge over the river Karnaphuli at Kalurghat project" shortly and will finish the entire work by December 2030.
Appreciating the bilateral relation with Korea, Mr Mahmood Ali expected a substantial amount of assistance from Korea in the next five years.
Meanwhile, Railways Minister Zillul Hakim expressed the hope to start construction of the Kalurghat bridge soon.
When asked about the delays in projects under the Indian LoC, he said: "We have requested the Indian counterpart to help expedite the project execution."
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