Foreign aid commitment moved up in the first half of this fiscal year, breaking continuous fall over the last few months.
According to the Economic Relations Division, the foreign assistance commitment during July-December stood at US$1.47 billion up from $1 billion in the same period of the previous year.
Of the total commitments during the period, $1.31 billion came in the form of loans while $158.83 million as grants.
During the period, the aid disbursement also grew to $1.59 billion from $1.5 billion, the ERD data showed. Of the aid disbursement, the government received $1.29 billion as loans and $298.83 million as grants.
Among the development partners, the World Bank disbursed $654 million, the Asian Development Bank $449.61 million, the Japan International Cooperation Agency $214 million and Islamic Development Bank $53 million in H1 in this fiscal.
Meanwhile, the government during the period paid back $523 million, including $429 million as principal amount and $94 million as interest, to the development partners against the outstanding loans.
In the same period of the last fiscal year, it had paid back debts of $632.9 million including $538.45 million as principal amount and $94.45 million as interests, to the foreign lenders.
The government in the current FY 2016 has targeted nearly $6 billion external assistance commitment including loans and grants.
Meanwhile, International Business Forum of Bangladesh (IBFB) expressed concerned about the huge amount of unutilised funds of foreign aids that has been remaining in the pipeline for a few years as the government could not utilise the funds.
According to the experts, the main reason behind this is the lack of administrative capacity of the government, IBFB said in a statement yesterday.
It said there are some other contributory reasons like inadequate capacity in negotiation, inability to complete procurement process within the timeframe, land disputes etc.
IBFB strongly believes that strong and sustainable measures must be immediately taken to improve the scenario, said the statement.
