Metro rail project delayed

Construction work on the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT)-6, known as metro rail has been delayed due to lack of necessary Bangladeshi engineers, said Takao Toda, chief representative of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Outgoing chief representative Takao Toda told this after a meeting with Finance Minister AMA Muhith at his residence on Thursday.

The minister said the metro rail project was included in the Prime Minister's fast-track development project list for which it would get more speed.

"I will, however, personally give directive to the concerned ministries for speeding up execution of the project," Mr Muhith said.

The construction of 20-kilometre metro rail from north of the Uttara Model Town to the Bangladesh Bank head office is expected to be completed by 2019.

The Japanese government through the JICA will provide Tk 166.0 billion of the total project cost of Tk 220.0 billion ($ 2.5 billion) as loan at 0.01 per cent interest rate. The rest will be managed by the Bangladesh government, sources said.

While attention was made on Bangladesh's strategy on development partners the finance minister said China is becoming strategically more important to Bangladesh as it is the superpower in the global economy. "China knows its importance in the region and behaves like that," the minister said.

Mr Muhith said the government will focus on more and more on non-concessional loan along with concessional ones as the demand for external financing is growing.

Replying to whether the government would continue development activities as it did in the previous years, the minister said, "The government was visible in development activities during the last five years and will continue to remain so in future".