Bangladesh has decided to seek funds for at least three projects from an emerging multilateral lender, New Development Bank (NDB), officials say, amid a current drive for foreign finances.
The government will send a solar power-generation, a railway-development and a rural- development project to the NDB for funding, said an Economic Relations Division (ERD) official on Friday.
"We have already got some Preliminary Development Project Proposals (PDPP) for searching funds from the NDB. We will send the proposals to the ERD for confirming the funds," said a Planning Communication (PC) official.
The ERD official said they would send the financing proposal to the NDB shortly as Bangladesh got its membership in 2021. "For the first time, we are going to request the Bank for financing Bangladesh's projects."
Bangladesh's membership of the Shanghai-based lender will open up another door for getting overseas development assistance to implement different projects in the country, he hopes.
After the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the BRICS-established NDB comes up as another multilateral lender to Bangladesh, the ERD official notes.
Another ERD official says since Bangladesh needs huge investment for developing its infrastructure and for energy security, the NDB will be a good option for getting the funds.
As the country has paid its first installment of subscription and completed all legal and official formalities, it is expected that the first assistance from the NDB will be forthcoming within this fiscal year for the three above-mentioned projects.
Bangladesh paid the first installment of US$15 million in March this year out of its $942 million worth of shares in the bank, officials at the ERD said.
Dhaka will have to pay a total of $188 million in seven incremental installments annually as payable subscription while the remaining $754 million will be considered "callable fee" which it will not have to pay at this moment, ERD officials said.
In September last year, Bangladesh obtained around 1.0-percent share in the multilateral development bank, established by the BRICS member-countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
After starting operation in 2015, the NDB offered Bangladesh its 6th membership in 2021. It also offered the membership to Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Uruguay the same day.
The NDB is celebrating its seventh anniversary completing its initial capitalization of US$10 billion of equity contributed by founding members. Since its founding, the Bank has approved loans worth nearly U$32 billion for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in four continents. It has become an 'agile, lean, modern and fit-for-purpose' institution.
The Shanghai-based lender has taken up a 2022-2026 General Strategy that aims at handing out US$30 billion in development assistance over the next five years.
