The economic assistance that China was providing to Bangladesh was practically halted for almost two years, and the upcoming trip by Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus to Beijing is likely to bring the long-needed breakthrough in this direction, officials said yesterday.
They stated that economic ties with Bangladesh did not bear fruit for years even with visits by senior policymakers and the former prime minister in Beijing with the aim of deepening economic relations between the two states. We’ve been trying to engage with the Chinese foreign ministry for several months now. We’re trying to set up a meeting, but so far, we haven’t heard from them, said one senior Ministry of Finance official. He added, “We still expect that we can hold a meeting before the chief adviser comes. We’re waiting for a response from Beijing.” During the slow-paced developments, the top adviser is to travel to China from March 25-28. The trip will be accompanied by a March 28 meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, officials stated. China on May 10, 2023, granted a total of $276.25 million in loans for developing the water supply and sewerage in Rajshahi, the country’s latest capital assistance to the South Asian country, official statistics reveal. Earlier, on October 28, 2021, Beijing announced $1.1 billion credit financing for the construction of the Dhaka-Ashulia Elevated Expressway. The East Asia partner in April 2018 authorized $2.67 billion worth of loans for the building of the Padma railway-link line. At least three or four projects, in their last phase of execution, were pending complexities over the last two and three years for the delay in receiving approval for financial support from China, officials in the finance department said. Dhaka had requested Beijing earlier in October, 2016, to provide financing for 27 priority projects. As a response, during his tour to Bangladesh, China’s president committed approximately $20 billion in overseas assistance. It was the highest ever committed by any bilaterally developing donor country and was intended to be utilized in implementing the 27 projects by the year 2020. Still, barring a handful, China is yet to provide assurances for the remainder of the projects notwithstanding requests from Bangladesh, the second finance ministry official said. Sheikh Hasina, former Prime Minister, traveled to China from July 8-10, 2024, during which she requested that Beijing expedite the implementation of the development assistance that was committed by China in 2016 for 27 projects, ERD officials said.
Read More: UN Chief Guteres Arrives to Address Rohingya Crisis Joins Mass Iftar
Since the takeover by the caretaker government headed by the Professor Yunus in August, Foreign Adviser Touhid Hossain in January last visited China but was unable to make any breakthrough in the stalled assistance. The MoF officials stated that they were yet to receive any response about the outcome of the trip by the foreign adviser to China. In a bilateral meeting with Mr Touhid Hossain, the Foreign Minister, Wang Yi in principle agreed to allow more time for repayment of the loan. Both sides agreed that the repayment term of the Government Concessional Loan (GCL) and the Preferential Buyer’s Credit (PBC) would be extended from 20 years to 30 years. At the meeting, Mr. Touhid requested that the interest rate be reduced from 2-3 per cent to 1.0 per cent, exempt from the commitment charge and extending the term period for repayment from 20 to 30 years for both the PBC loan and the GCL.Until now, we haven’t heard any official news from Beijing about the interest rate cut and additional 10-year extension of the repayment period, said a senior ERD official. They indicated that they already asked China numerous times already to hold a bilateral conference about economic cooperative potential but, up until today, nothing was heard from them. We expect a response since we need economic support for our socioeconomic status and infrastructure establishment, the official said. Delays in the loan deals did happen, especially from the Chinese, another senior ERD official, who did not want to be identified, confirmed. A string of issues from the review process right through until signing the loan deals cause delays, he said. The country’s share in the outstanding loan is around $6.0 billion, which is around 8.60 per cent of the outstanding balance, ranking fourth, according to an ERD document.
Source: The Financial Express
