The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF ) has completed the second review of Bangladesh’s economic programmme under a three-year arrangement supported by the Extended Credit Facility and approved the immediate disbursement of the third installment under the ECF arrangement for an amount equivalent to about 136.6 million US dollars.

With this the total amount disbursed is about 409.7 million US dollars out of the about 956 million US dollars approved by IMF under the three-year ECF arrangement for Bangladesh.

Following the Executive Board’s discussion of Bangladesh, Mr. Naoyuki Shinohara, Deputy Managing Director and Acting Chair said that Bangladesh’s programme under the Extended Credit Facility is broadly on track with Macroeconomic pressures having eased, reserves rising and underlying inflation moderating, supported by restrained fiscal and monetary policies.

He said that notwithstanding the challenging global environment, exports have picked up and remittances remain strong.

He however cautioned that growth is slowing and could weaken further given downside risks and it will be important to maintain sound policy anchors and keep up the reform momentum.