South Korea-funded 20 railway locomotives to begin operation

Bangladesh Railway unveiled 30 metre-gauge and 16 broad-gauge locomotives today (April 27, 2022) at Kamalapur Railway Station in Dhaka.

The inauguration was held with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as the chief guest.

Railway Minister Md Nurul Islam Sujan and Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Ministry of Railway ABM Fazle Karim Chowdhury attended the ceremony as special guests. US Ambassador Peter Haas and South Korean Chargé d'Affaires Jungyoul Lee were also present on the occasion.

Among the 30 metre-gauge locomotives, 20 locomotives are funded by concessional loans from the Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF) of the Korean government. EDCF funded 91 million USD for the procurement of 20 metre-gauge diesel electric locomotives.

EDCF is one of Korea's development financing programs for assisting the socio-economic development of developing countries. The repayment period of the EDCF loans will be 40 years, including a 15-year grace period, with the annual interest rate between 0.01%~0.05%.

The delivery of 20 locomotives was completed in November 2021. All 30 metre-gauge locomotives, 20 EDCF-funded and 10 ADB-funded locomotives, have been procured from Hyundai Rotem Company of Korea, one of the leading companies in the railway vehicles industry in the world.

Bangladesh is the second largest recipient of the EDCF loans worldwide in aggregate amount. So far, the Republic of Korea has funded 24 development projects of Bangladesh with a total amount of 1.2 billion US dollars through the EDCF.