Shawdesh desk:

Bangladesh received a record USD $8.41 billion in foreign loans in 11 months of current FY2021-22, the Economic Relations Division said on Thursday.

At current exchange rate the amount is equivalent to Tk78221 crore, the highest loan ever in a single fiscal year. The amount is 47 per cent higher than the previous fiscal year.

The ERD officials estimate that the foreign debt will exceed 9 billion by the end of the fiscal year on June 30, 2022.

After the economic crisis in Sri Lanka, there is a lot of talk about Bangladesh’s foreign debt.

However, economists and analysts are dismissing the comparison between the two countries. They say foreign debt is still below 13 per cent of Bangladesh’s GDP.

In case of Sri Lanka, it is close to 50 per cent.

Economist and researcher Ahsan H. Mansur said, “The leap has been made by receiving more loans than expected from various donor countries and organizations, including the World Bank and the ADB, to offset the effects of the two-year epidemic.”

Analysis of ERD data shows that in the last FY2020-21, Bangladesh received $7.10 loan assistance from development partners.

Before that, in the fiscal year 2019-20, Bangladesh received $7.38 billion foreign loan that was the history of the country till FY 21.

Foreign debt has been increasing in Bangladesh since the fiscal year 2017-18. In the same year, it jumped to $6.37 billion. Then in the fiscal year 2018-19 it stood at Tk6.54 billion.