Meghna bags $82m foreign loan for sugar plant

Meghna Sugar Refinery Ltd, a sister concern of Meghna Group of Industries, has managed an $82 million loan or around Tk 688 crore from a consortium of foreign financial institutions to establish a sugar refinery plant at Meghna Economic Zone in Narayanganj.

The company will produce around 4,000 tonnes of liquid and invert sugar—an edible mixture of glucose and fructose—every day, said Mostafa Kamal, chairman of the group.

“We will use state-of-the-art technology and this will be the first Bangladeshi plant to produce invert sugar here.”

Kamal shared the info at a programme on Monday when the group signed a deal with the consortium at The Westin Dhaka.

The consortium includes German financier DEG, Dutch development bank FMO, Austrian development bank OeEB and the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD), which is the major private sector development arm of the Islamic Development Bank Group.

Eastern Bank Ltd (EBL) will be facilitator, security agency and accounts bank of the deal for the low-cost loan that will come with an eight-year tenure.

Kamal along with Hubertus Pleister, director and head of corporate Asia at DEG; Steven Duyverman, manager and head of FMO Agribusiness Asia, FMO; Ahmed Al-Akwaa, division head for portfolio and follow up at ICD, and Ali Reza Iftekhar, CEO of EBL, signed the deal at the programme.

“Meghna Group is moving in a correct way to obtain foreign loan,” Kamal said.

Bangladesh is becoming an attractive destination for foreign direct investment thanks to the growing confidence of the foreign investors, he said.

He is hopeful that his plant will be able to export liquid and invert sugar after meeting domestic demand.

Bangladesh has achieved miraculous development in the last 10 years, when it achieved a threefold growth in gross domestic product, Md Abul Kalam Azad, principal coordinator for SDG at the Prime Minister's Office, said at the deal signing ceremony.

It was possible due to the contribution of entrepreneurs, financial institutions and leadership, he said.

He also sought support from the development partners for skills development of the new entrants that are added to the workforce every year.

Peter Fahrenholtz, German ambassador to Bangladesh, and Paban Chowdhury, executive chairman of Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority, also spoke.