Bangladesh Bank (BB) has created an export facilitation fund of Tk 100 billion to support export-oriented firms.

Under the fund, an exporter will be allowed to take a loan of a maximum of Tk 2.0 billion from the fund, which is a pre-finance scheme by nature, as per a BB circular issued on Sunday.

As per the circular, BB finances businesses through banks in response to their applications and exporters will have to use the fund to import raw materials, reports BSS.

Banks will avail the fund at an interest rate of 1.5 per cent from the central bank. The end users will pay 4.0 per cent to avail the fund from banks, according to a Bangladesh Bank notice.

The fund would help exporters to tackle challenges in external trade stemming from its journey towards becoming a developing nation from a least developed one.

It will also help exporters address the challenges of emancipating from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

Lenders will have to repay the fund within six months. But they can extend or reduce the repayment tenure for clients.

If any exporter fails to repatriate the worth of the exported goods on time due to any unexpected situation, the central bank will extend the repayment facility for another three months on a case-to-case basis.

Clients will not be allowed to enjoy new funds from the scheme if they have overdue export bills.

Banks would be able to enjoy new funds from the scheme if they failed to repatriate their export bills on time for unforeseen reasons.

In such a situation, exporters will have to repay at least 50 per cent of their overdue payments before availing the loan facility.

Clients already enjoying loans from other funds of the central bank to import raw materials will not be allowed to take loans from the central bank’s scheme.

Members of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, Bangladesh Textile Mills Association, Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association, and B and C types industries of the export processing zones (EPZs) will be eligible to avail the fund.

There are three types of companies in the EPZs, namely A, B, and C.

Joint venture companies with foreign and Bangladeshi ownerships are treated as type B and those with 100 per cent Bangladeshi ownerships type C.

Bangladesh is now the 35th largest economy in the world, according to a report titled ‘The Top Heavy Global Economy’, published by ‘Visual Capitalist’.

Bangladesh and India were the only two South Asian countries considered to be part of the 50 largest economies in this list based on International Monetary Fund (IMF) statistics, reports BSS.

Citing IMF statistics, Canadian online publication ‘Visual Capitalist’ reported this information on December 29. Countries are listed in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

As per the report, Bangladesh is the 35th largest economy in 2022 with a GDP size of US$460.8 billion. Earlier, the rank of Bangladesh was 41st.

According to the report, the neighbouring country India has moved to fifth place in the world economy. Earlier, it was in the sixth position.

With a GDP of $3.46 trillion in 2022, India has overtaken the United Kingdom (UK) to occupy fifth place.

The first, second, third and fourth places in the list are the USA, China, Japan and Germany respectively. The remaining five countries in the world’s 10 largest economies are the UK, France, Canada, Russia and Italy respectively.

According to the report, two major events happened in the world in the year 2022. First – the world’s population has crossed 8 billion. Second, the size of the world economy has crossed $100 trillion to $101.56 trillion.