Bangladesh has slashed its annual development programme (ADP) for this fiscal year by 15 percent to 220 billion taka ($3.18 billion) because of hefty loan repayments and poor aid inflows, officials said on Wednesday.
Bangladesh's fiscal year runs from July to June. In the first half of the year to end-December the government borrowed up to 60 billion taka from local banks and it has also sold savings certificates to the general public.
The country is being run by an interim government charged with arranging free and fair elections originally scheduled for January 22. The process has been scarred by political violence and the country is in crisis, with no new election date in sight. The decision to cut the ADP was taken on Monday at a meeting chaired by Mirza Azizul Islam, finance and planning adviser to the interim authority, officials said.
Local resources account for 57 percent of Bangladesh's ADP funding while 43 percent comes from foreign assistance. Net foreign aid received by Bangladesh between July and October dropped by 88 percent from a year earlier to just $22.70 million because of the political unrest during the period, officials said.