Dhaka Bank raises Tk 900cr for Bashundhara Oil

Dhaka Bank Ltd has arranged a syndicated loan of Tk 900 crore for Bashundhara Oil and Gas Company Ltd (BOGCL) to help it set up a plant to refine crude petroleum products. Other lenders are Southeast Bank, Social Islami Bank, NRB Bank, South Bangla Agriculture & Commerce Bank, and Saudi-Bangladesh Industrial and Agricultural Investment Company (Sabinco). The annual refining capacity of the plant, located in Keraniganj of Dhaka, is 17 lakh tonnes. The plant will mainly produce bitumen by refining crude oil. In addition, diesel, furnace oil and naphtha will be produced. The financial closure ceremony of the syndicated term loan was held at a local hotel in the capital on October 12. Emranul Huq, managing director of Dhaka Bank, M Kamal Hossain, MD of Southeast Bank, Zafar Alam, MD of Social Islami Bank, Mamoon Mahmood Shah, MD of NRB Bank, Habibur Rahman, MD (current charge) of SBAC Bank, and Ahmed Ehsanul Karim, MD of Sabinco, attended the programme.

Source: https://www.thedailystar.net/business/economy/news/dhaka-bank-raises-tk-900cr-bashundhara-oil-3143646

Negotiations on $4.5 billion IMF loan open soon

Negations on a US$4.5-billion budget-support credit Bangladesh seeks from the International Monetary Fund open soon as an IMF mission arrives here this week for a firsthand view of the country’s creditworthiness. An IMF executive in a press briefing Saturday spoke in detail about Bangladesh’s approach for the credit and its economic situation, especially inflation, currency depreciation, growth prospect and the like. We are currently preparing for negotiation mission, for first negotiation mission to Bangladesh, which will start next week,” said Anne-Marie Gulde, Deputy Director, Asia and Pacific Department at the IMF. “We are also using the current period of the authorities here to already start discussing some of the issues that have come up,” she said while briefing journalists at the IMF headquarters. The Fund shared the transcript of the press briefing on its website.

Source: https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/economy/negotiations-on-45-billion-imf-loan-open-soon-1665887162

Remittance through bKash doubles in 2021

Migrant workers and Bangladeshis living abroad sent a whopping Tk2,427 crore through bKash in 2021, giving a testament to the growing popularity of the alternative payment/remitting channel among expatriates. That means remittance disbursement through bKash shot up by 111% year-on-year in 2021, up from Tk1,151 crore in 2020. The remittances sent by the expatriates from more than 70 countries are instantly reaching their relatives’ bKash accounts through 75 Money Transfer Organisations (MTO) via settlement in 12 commercial banks in Bangladesh. In continuation of the last few years, the remittance disbursement through bKash is also increasing this year as well and is poised to reach a new milestone. In the first eight months of this year, Tk2,343 crore remittances were disbursed through bKash.

Source: https://www.tbsnews.net/economy/remittance-through-bkash-doubles-2021-514250