Korea plans to raise soft loan to $3b

Korea has decided to increase the size of Korea's soft loan to US$ 3 billion from $700 million, Korean Ambassador in Dhaka Lee Jung Keun said on Wednesday.
"This amount will be implemented during the next five years, between 2022 and 2026," the envoy told the DCAB Talk, organised by the Diplomatic Correspondents' Association of Bangladesh.
Korea has so far provided $1.34 billion of EDCF concessional loans to Bangladesh for 27 projects.
"With this increase, Korea can now assist bigger development projects in Bangladesh. I believe that this will help Bangladesh for the smooth graduation of LDC in 2026," the envoy added.
Regarding the foreign direct investment, the ambassador said there had been continuous inflow of Korean investment to Bangladesh.
Korea remains one of the major foreign investors in Bangladesh. According to the BB, the accumulated stock of Korean FDI increased to $1.4 billion in 2021/22 from $1.1 billion in 2019/20.
Mr Keun said Korea is the fifth major foreign investor for Bangladesh and in the case of the gross FDI flow in the first quarter of this year, Korea is the first with $150 million.
After being stagnant for more than 10 years, the Bangladesh-Korea bilateral trade last year reached a record high of over $2 billion, the ambassador noted.
The previous highest record was set in 2011 when the trade volume between the countries reached $1.8 billion.
Korea's export to Bangladesh recorded $1.63 billion in 2021, registering 58 per cent growth from the previous year, while Bangladesh's export to Korea reached $552 million, marking a 40 per cent rise year-on-year.
"It is encouraging that our bilateral trade is expanding in spite of the global economic crisis. We have to make efforts to maintain this upward trend of bilateral trade," the envoy told the event.
This year, between January and August, more than 3,000 Bangladesh workers went to Korea - this is a record high number, said Mr Keun.
By the end of this year, the number might reach almost 4,000, he said, adding that this was another area where meaningful progress was made.
Before the pandemic, annually less than 2,000 Bangladesh workers used to go to Korea, said the envoy.
The worker recruitment remained suspended for almost two years - it resumed in December last year, said Mr Keun, adding that there were more than 10,000 Bangladesh expatriates working in Korea now.
He informed the event that this year's quota increased to 3,441 from 1,941.
Bangladeshi workers in Korea remitted home more than $209 million in the 2020/21 fiscal year, making Korea the 12th major remittance-sending country.
Even though Korea's ODA to Bangladesh is relatively smaller than those of Japan, US and Europe, Bangladesh is the third major recipient of Korea's ODA, Mr Keun said, expecting that Bangladesh would be the second largest recipient this year.
The envoy said during his tenure in Dhaka he had stuck to three major objectives - diversifying RMG-centred cooperation, taking the relations into a new height, and focusing on the younger generation.

mirmostafiz@yahoo.com