Govt, IFAD sign $40m loan deal
Friday, 12 December 2014
The government and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) have inked a US $40 million loan agreement that will provide financial services and technical training to 452,000 rural men and women in rural areas across Bangladesh. The project – Promoting Agricultural Commercialization and Enterprises (PACE) - will put in place mechanisms to link small farmers and micro-entrepreneurs to markets and create new employment opportunities for poor people in rural areas. Senior Secretary of the Ministry of Finance Mohammad Mejbahuddin and IFAD Country Programme Manager Hubert Boirard signed the deal to finance PACE in Dhaka. With a total cost of $92.9m, the IFAD-supported project is co-financed with additional contributions from the Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), its partner microfinance institutions and the Republic of Korea. Since 1978, IFAD has invested a total of $ 673.9m in 30 projects in Bangladesh benefitting nearly 9.3 million households, according to a news agency.