Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (BEZA) has demanded the government pay 5% extra interest against the loan to be taken from the Bangladesh Infrastructure Finance Fund Limited (BIFFL) for acquiring land for three economic zones.
The actual interest rate against the loan will be the bank rate plus 5%, which may be 13%. BEZA wants the 5% interest be paid by the government to BIFFL.
BEZA will borrow Tk365 crore from the BIFFL to acquire a total of 240.64 acres of private land in Sherpur, Moulvibazar and Sylhet for construction of the economic zones.
Prime Minister's Office also sent a letter recently to Finance Division in favour of BEZA 's demand.
About the loan, an officia said: “BEZA is trying hard to get fund for acquiring and developing land around the proposed economic zones.
BIFFL has already showed interest to give the loan.
“We need BIFFL fund to acquire land for three economic zones. BIFFL has decided to give us commercial loan at a moderate interest rate,” Paban Chowdhury, chief executive of BEZA, told Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
He said several developers would be appointed to develop the BEZA offices across the country.
For other three economic zones, PMO earlier sought a fund of Tk2,700 crore from the finance ministry as urgent allocation for land acquisition.
The zones will be constructed in Mirsrai of Chittagong, Gohira in Anowara of Chittagong and Moulvibazar.
Land sizes of the three zones are 6615.12 acres, 611.47 acres and 354.99 acres respectively.
Industrial activities in the five proposed economic zones now seem to be far off as the site-development works are moving at a very slow pace, newspaper reports quoted sources concerned.
Earlier, the governing body headed by the prime minister approved five sites in 2012 for constructing the first-ever economic zones in the country.