The International Monetary Fund (IMF) at its December board meeting on Tuesday, approved the release of a second tranche of a $4.7 billion loan that was approved last January.
This second transfer will see $682 million transferred to Bangladesh's account, to go with close to $450 million in the first transfer.
Alongside the $400 million the country received as loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the IMF monies will help to ease significant pressure that has been building on the country's forex reserves in the last two years.
Finance Minister AHM Mustfa Kamal confirmed it to UNB Tuesday night.
The IMF board approved the $4.7 billion loan on January 30.
In the first tranche, Bangladesh received $447.8 million on February 2 this year. The country is expected to receive the rest in another five tranches.
Earlier, in October, an IMF delegation came to Bangladesh on a two-week visit, reviewed the loan program, and placed the second loan tranche proposal before the IMF board.
The executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the first review under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) and Extended Fund Facility (EFF) as well as Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) arrangements for Bangladesh, allowing the authorities to withdraw the equivalent to special drawing rights (SDR) 352.35 million (about $468.3 million) under the ECF/EFF, and SDR 166.67 million (about $221.5 million) under the RSF.
SDR is an international reserve asset, whose value is based on a basket of five currencies -- the US dollar, the euro, the Chinese renminbi, the Japanese yen, and the British pound sterling.
This brings total disbursements under the ECF/EFF thus far to SDR 704.70 million (about $936.6 million) and under the RSF to SDR 166.67 million (about $221.5 million).
The ECF/EFF and RSF arrangements for Bangladesh were approved by the executive board on January 30 earlier this year, in an amount equivalent to SDR 2.5 billion (231.4% of quota or about $3.3 billion) under the ECF/EFF and SDR 1 billion (93.8% of quota or about $1.4 billion) under the RSF.
