Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) - The government will receive US$200 million as syndicated loan from overseas sources for importing petroleum products, officials have said.
Three foreign commercial banks (FCBs) are mobilizing the loan from the global market for the state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) at 5.25 per cent rate of interest.
“The FCBs will start disbursing the loan from Tuesday (March 6)," a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) told BBN, adding that the loan will be treated as 'revolving facility' initially for a period of one year.
The banks are Standard Chartered Bank, Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, generally known as HSBC, and Citibank N.A.
“We expect that the loan will help keep the foreign exchange market stable to some extent," the central banker noted.
A senior banker, who is close to the loan arrangement, told BBN that the second installment of the loan will be disbursed on March 8 this year.
The latest move of the government came against the backdrop of reluctance on the part of the state-owned commercial banks (SCBs) to open letters of credit (LCs) for importing fuel oils by the BPC.
The dues of BPC with five state-run banks stood at over BDT 170 billion till January 2012.
BBN/SSR/SI-05Mar12-8:00 am (BST)
