Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal has said that Bangladesh is in the safe zone in terms of receiving foreign loans.
He made the remarks while briefing reporters after the two consecutive meetings of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) and Cabinet Committee on Public Purchase (CCPP) on Thursday.
Defending his remarks, he said Bangladesh’s debt-GDP ratio is 34% which is lowest in the world.
“Our foreign exchange reserves are much higher than requirement, remittance is increasing, export is growing, and inflation is under control. We’re in the safe zone”, he said.
Kamal said the whole world is appreciating Bangladesh for its economic performance.
He said the countries having debt higher than their GDP (gross domestic products) are currently in danger. “But we are not at that level. Rather, our debt is much lower than GDP,” he asserted.
Responding to another question, the finance minister said the toll rates of the Padma Bridge have not been fixed yet. But a joint venture of South Korea and China has been awarded a contract to collect the tolls from the Padma Bridge project.
“We didn’t do any detailed work on it. But we have a plan to make some profits by collecting revenue from the Padma Bridge project in order to implement more similar projects”, he said.
He said both the government and the users of the Padma Bridge will benefit from the project.
“We hope we could collect more revenue than the requirements to meet its expenditures”, he added.
Govt plans to buy fertilizer from KSA, Qatar and Kafco
The CCPP approved three separate proposals to procure 100,000 tons of fertilizer from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and local company Kafco at a meeting on Thursday. Seven other proposals also got nod.
As per the approvals, Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC) will import 40,000 ton DAP fertilizer at Tk339.13 crore from Ma'dan of Saudi Arabia while Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC) will import 30,000 tons of bulk urea fertilizer from Muntajat of Qatar at Tk247.10 crore.
Another 30,000 ton bagged granular urea from local Karnaphuli Fertilizer Company (Kafco) at Tk241.96 crore.
The BCIC also received a nod from the committee to purchase 10,000 tons of phosphoric acid from RK Enterprise, Dhaka at Tk82.94 crore.