The Exim Bank of China has requested Bangladesh to expedite the process of signing the commercial contracts on seven development projects to be funded by it, officials said.
"Our bank attaches great importance to the cooperation with the Economic Relations Division (ERD). In a bid to speed up the projects' evaluation process, we request the Bangladeshi side to expedite the commercial contract signing process of seven development projects," said the bank in a recent letter.
The seven projects are procurement of six vessels for the Bangladesh Shipping Corporation, establishment of four-tier national data centre, Dasher Kandi Sewage Treatment Plant, Rajshahi Surface Water Treatment Plant, Single Point Mooring, Development of National ICT Infra-Network for Bangladesh Government Phase III and construction of the tunnel under the River Karnaphuli.
The bank also sought some documents from the ERD to evaluate the progress of these projects.
A delegation of Chinese Exim Bank had recently held talks with the ERD officials. They were informed that the commercial progress of the seven projects was going on smoothly.
Officials said during the visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to Beijing in June 2012, the Chinese government agreed to fund several projects, including Single Point Mooring, Development of National Infra Network, Construction of the Tunnel under the River Karnaphuli and Rajshahi WASA Surface Water Treatment Plant.
The Chinese Bank has now taken a move to expedite the process of its funding and implementation of the projects, they added.
The government is planning to build a flagship Tier IV Data Centre at Kaliakoir in Gazipur. The project involving US$8.0 million will be implemented to store and process large amounts of official data. China has agreed to finance the project to be implemented by ZTE Corporation, a leading global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions.
The Chinese Bank is also funding the procurement of three bulk carriers and three oil tankers for the Bangladesh Shipping Corporation. It will give $171 million as soft loan to fund the procurement. The BSC and the CMC (China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation) signed a commercial contract in April last year in this regard.
However, the procurement is facing procedural delays and signing of a financial deal deferred several times.
To treat the sewage of the capital's Hatirjheel-Begunbari canal, the government had taken up 'Dasher Kandi Sewage Treatment Plant' project which was scheduled to begin in January 2011 and end in December 2013. The project could not be launched due to fund crunch.
In November last year, the Dhaka Wasa and Chinese company Hydropower signed an agreement to implement the project to be funded by Chinese Exim Bank.
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