The World Bank on Friday approved a $ 250 million for Bangladesh as a grant to help strengthen policies to stabilize growth following the Covid 19 epidemic and to improve resilience to the coming conditions.
Bangladesh’s First Recovery and Sustainable Development Credit Credit is the first in a series of two credits to support financial sector policies and to promote greater economic stability and sustain growth. It supports the development and modernization of public safety programs and energy industry policies in order to improve efficiency and reduce emissions. These actions will help the country cope with the coming shocking events, including climate change, the World Bank said.
The Country Director of the World Bank in Bangladesh and Bhutan Mercy Tembon said that since 2020 the World Bank has provided USD 3 billion in Bangladesh to support emergency response, vaccination and other Covid recovery efforts. He said the debt would also pave the way for green, strong, inclusive and low carbon growth by strengthening government efforts in this regard.
The program supports the development of a National Tax Policy which will help to modernize trade taxes so that foreign firms can submit VAT refunds and make payments. Funding will help simplify the bank repayment framework. All the planned banks will prepare restructuring plans, which will be reviewed annually. This plan will help the government to speed up the transfer of funds to respond to future crises and increase the use of the pay-per-view platform through cash-based systems.
On the environmental front, funding will allow the government to respond quickly to climate-related problems, including floods and hurricanes, by identifying and identifying new and existing beneficiaries for emergency assistance. It will also help Bangladesh transition to a lower carbon economy.
The credit comes from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), which provides financing agreements over a period of 30 years, including a five-year grace period. Bangladesh currently has a large ongoing IDA program with a total value of more than USD 14.5 billion.