The government plans to increase the use of foreign credit in offsetting the budget deficit, Economic Relations Division (ERD) Secretary Kazi Shofiqul Azam has said. He said there is a 5% deficit in the present budget and the government meets up this deficit by taking 3.5% credit from domestic sources and 1.5% from foreign sources. “But we want to increase the foreign part from 2% to 2.5% because of lower interest rate,” said the ERD secretary on Sunday. Azam said the government paid interest worth Tk42,000 crore, of which only Tk2,000 crore was paid against foreign loans and the rest of the amount was paid against domestic credit. He, however, added that foreign credit and assistance would decline when Bangladesh becomes a lower middle income country in March next year.

Source: Dhaka Tribune December 03, 2017 14:52 UTC