Muhith opposes IMF proposal on concessional loans

Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Sunday strongly opposed a proposal placed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to supervise concessional loans to the least developed countries (LDCs) including Bangladesh.
The finance minister expressed his opposition during a short media briefing after a meeting with Rakesh Mohan, Executive Director, IMF (South Asia)
"We opposed the proposal seriously", he told reporters after a meeting with Mr Rakesh Mohan at the Secretariat.
He said the World Bank had monitored the non-concessional loans and this should continue.
He, however, said there will be no serious difficulty even if the IMF looks at concessional loans.
In reply to a question, Mr Muhith said the performance of Bangladesh in foreign credit payment is comparably better than that of other countries and it has now become a culture of Bangladesh.
The IMF, in a proposal to the government, had expressed its desire to monitor all foreign loans to the country under its reformed debt limit policy for the low-income countries (LICs), sources at the Economic Relations Division (ERD) said on January 27, 2014.
However, Mr Rakesh Mohan praised Bangladesh's macroeconomic performance.
BSS adds: Talking to reporters, Mr Rakesh Mohan said the Bangladesh economy is now at a stable position and the average growth of gross domestic product (GDP) that Bangladesh achieved over the last few years was satisfactory.
"Bangladesh economy is doing well . . . record forex reserve, over 6.0 percent GDP growth, surplus in current accounts and inflation is under control . . . there are good indicators for the economy," said Mr Rakesh after an hour-long meeting with the finance minister.
The IMF director said his team is now evaluating Bangladesh economy and after the evaluation, he will place a complete report about the overall economy before journalists.