Staff Correspondent:

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has finally agreed to disburse the next two tranches of its $4.7 billion loan package for Bangladesh, amounting to $1.3 billion, in June.

The decision follows a series of meetings held in Washington between Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Ahsan H Mansur and senior IMF officials, according to the central bank spokesperson.

The funds had previously been withheld due to unresolved issues concerning the implementation of a more flexible exchange rate regime, particularly the adoption of a crawling peg mechanism, and concerns over the country’s tax-to-GDP ratio.

An IMF staff mission, led by Chris Papageorgiou, visited Dhaka from 6–17 April to carry out a combined third and fourth review of Bangladesh’s economic reform progress under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF), Extended Credit Facility (ECF) and the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF).

Dr Mansur is expected to elaborate on the outcome of the negotiations during a press conference scheduled for Wednesday (May 14) at the Bangladesh Bank headquarters. He will join the event virtually from Dubai.