WB to lend $550m

The World Bank (WB) yesterday it would lend roughly 550 million dollars to Bangladesh as a first installment of development funds under a three-year plan.

The amount, to be finalised at a meeting of the Bank's board of directors in Washington on June 19, is expected to nearly double the 300 million dollars provided last year, said Frederick Temple, the WB country director for Bangladesh.

"The first chunk of the World Bank financial support will be given without any judgement [on performance]," Temple told reporters.

But he said the second installment of the loan, aimed to help the South Asian nation achieve economic growth and fight poverty, would be made after a performance assessment.

Temple, who is to return to Washington later this year at the end of his three-year tenure in Bangladesh, praised various initiatives in economic and other fields made in the first 15 months of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's government.

He said donors "want to see evidence of commitment to change and initiate steps to change before we come with financing."

"We don't say everything is perfect. We go on saying there is very promising initiation of stabilisation (and) structural reforms," he said, adding that there was still a "big agenda on the table."

Temple's comments came a week after a Bangladesh Develop-ment Forum (BDF) donors meeting praised Dhaka for achieving reforms but cautioned that it needed to do more on human rights, governance and crime.

Bangladesh wants two billion dollars from the BDF, which groups the World Bank, the IMF, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and donor countries including Australia, France, Japan, Britain and the United States.