The government received record US$ 2.78 billion in foreign aid in the last financial year (FY) as some major donors, including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and Japan disbursed quite impressive amounts of funds in financial assistance, officials said Tuesday.
The foreign aid inflow, handled by the government during the period of July 2012 to June 2013 was up by $ 660 million from that in the corresponding period of the FY 2011-12, according to data of the Economic Relations Division (ERD) released Tuesday.
The $ 2.78 billion foreign aid also exceeded the annual target by $100 million. In the FY 2013, the government set the foreign assistance target at $ 2.68 billion.
The impressive foreign aid inflow was attributed to higher fund disbursements by Bangladesh's largest development partner World Bank, a senior ERD official said.
The WB alone disbursed $ 901.99 million in assistance during the July-June period of the FY 2013. Besides, the ADB also disbursed an impressive amount of $ 670.45 million and the Japan government $ 360.43 million.
Of the total amount of $ 2.78 billion received by the government of Bangladesh in the last fiscal, $ 2.13 billion came in the form of loans and $ 651.79 million in grants, the ERD statistics showed.
New aid commitments of the multilateral and bilateral donors during the last fiscal also showed an upward trend.
The government received aid commitments to the tune of record $ 5.93 billion, higher by $ 1.16 billion than that of the previous fiscal, according to the latest ERD statistics.
The donors committed $5.92 billion in external assistance, including loans and grants, during the FY 2011-12.
"The World Bank (WB), the ADB and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) disbursed 'impressive' amounts of funds last fiscal. This is an encouraging figure as far as the aid disbursement is concerned," said a senior ERD official.
Since the aid disbursements by the WB and Japan increased in the last couple of months of the last fiscal, the overall aid disbursement reached a satisfactory level, he added.
Furthermore, the external aid disbursements by bilateral donors like China, the UK's Department for International Development (DfID) and India also saw an impressive trend during the last fiscal.
During the period under review Bangladesh repaid $ 1.12 billion in both accrued interests and principal amounts against the total outstanding loans until June 2013.
The amount, paid on account of external debt amortization, was $ 155 million higher than that of the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, the ERD data showed.
Of the $ 1.12 billion repaid, the principal amounts of outstanding loans accounted for $ 919.19 million and interest amounts $202.19 million.
