Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has started assessing the overall economic performance of Bangladesh, officials said.
A five-member IMF Article IV Consultation Mission, led by Rodrigo Cubero, deputy divisional chief in the Asia and Pacific Department, arrived in Dhaka on Tuesday in this connection.
The mission started discussion on different key indicators of the South Asian country with the government senior officials, central bankers and senior bankers particularly the state-owned commercial banks on Wednesday to known the latest economic situation.
As part of the assessment, the IMF mission took a firsthand account of internal control and compliance (ICC) situation of three leading state-owned commercial banks (SoCBs) in direct consultation with their chief executive and senior officers.
The SoCBs who updated the mission on their situation are Sonali, Janata and Agrani.
The banks’ executives informed the meeting that they were now working to improve their ICC in line with the existing Banking Companies Act and the Bangladesh Bank (BB) instructions for minimising risks.
“We’re also implementing the existing core risk guidelines properly to minimise our risks,” a senior SoCB official said.
The central bank of Bangladesh earlier had identified six core risk areas in the banking sector. The risk factors are: credit, asset and liability, foreign exchange, information technology, internal controls and compliance, and money laundering.
During the meeting, issues like non-performing loan (NPL) situation, progresses on automation, business plans and liquidity management were discussed.
Earlier in the day, the mission met with deputy governors and senior advisers of the central bank to discuss banking- sector situation and monetary and exchange-rate issues.
The mission is scheduled to meet again with senior officials of BB on Thursday to know about latest performance of the banking sector and soundness indicators, the overall situation of state-owned banks, including BASIC, and recapitalisation
During its two-week stay in the capital, the IMF mission is expected to meet with Finance Minister AMA Muhith, BB Governor Dr Atiur Rahman and senior officials of both the finance ministry and the central bank.
The IMF Article IV Consultation Mission assesses the overall economic performances of its 188 member-countries across the world every two years.
BBN/SSR/AD