A senior executive of International Monetary Fund, who was scheduled to visit Dhaka from Monday, could not arrive due to the Hefazat siege, said a finance division official.
The IMF deputy managing director, Naoyuki Shinohara, wanted to discuss about the country’s export sectors, particularly the emerging situation of apparel industry.
The official said the government has missed an opportunity to seek fund from the IMF for garment sector, which is now facing stiff competition in the global market and exposed to a setback following the factory collapse in Savar that left at least 660 people killed as of Monday.
In 2007-08, the IMF had provided Bangladesh with a fund support under its Poverty Reduction Growth Facility (PRGF) programme to help the export sector face the challenges of global recession.
Another official said Shinohara might have been scheduled for holding discussions with Finance Minister AMA Muhith and Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman on the conditions tied with IMF’s Extended Credit Facility (ECF) before releasing the third tranche of the credit.
IMF had approved a three-year ECF loan of $975.9 in April last year to be disbursed in seven installments. The third tranche of ECF fund will be above US$100m. The second installment of US$139.4m was released last month.
The finance division had also formed a five-member committee to fix the schedule for meetings with the prime minister and finance minister as well as a dinner party.
Meanwhile, apparel manufacturers and exporters in a statement recently said that more than US$500m worth of export orders have already been shifted to India due to the political unrest.
The statement said foreign buyers were threatening to cancel orders for not exporting goods in time while the exporters were being forced to give discount to the buyers.
Sometimes, the statement said, the exporters were facing cancellation and deferred payment due to failure in maintaining the shipment schedule.
