The Deputy Managing Director (DMD) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Antoinette Monsio Sayeh, arrives in Dhaka today (January 14, 2023) for a 5-day visit. She will stay in Dhaka till January 18. During her visit, Sayeh will meet with the prime minister, finance minister, governor of Bangladesh Bank and other senior officials of the government. According to finance ministry sources, Sayeh is coming to Dhaka from Delhi after completing her current Indian visit. The IMF DMD will visit Padma Bridge on January 18. A meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled for January 16. Sayeh will report to the IMF headquarters regarding the $4.5 billion loan for Bangladesh to combat the global recession. Read more: Govt works to implement IMF conditions to get $4.5 billion loan: Official The report will be presented at the IMF board meeting. Based on this, the process of providing the loan will be finalized. The government has reached an in-principle agreement on the loan with the IMF. Now only the formalities remain. Some conditions have already been implemented. Electricity prices were hiked by an average of 5 percent on Thursday to implement another IMF condition. The government will seek some time to implement some other IMF conditions. Read more: Government working on IMF’s conditions to get $4.5 billion loan Meanwhile, Bangladesh Bank will announce the new monetary policy for the period from January to June of the current financial year tomorrow in accordance with the conditions of the IMF. It will give the impression of raising the loan interest rate to a limited extent. At the same time, monetary policy will be used to control the rate of inflation. For this reason, the matter of increasing the policy interest rate of the central bank is also in the process. The government hopes to receive the first installment of the IMF loan in February. For the first installment, $45.45 crore will be received. Thereafter one installment will be made every six months. Read More: IMF loan is like a character certificate: PM’s advisor Mashiur

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) team is now in Dhaka to discuss the terms and conditions of a prospective $4.5 billion loan for the Bangladesh government.   Officials of the Ministry of Finance said the global lender would hold meetings with various government departments during then visit slated to last till November 9. IMF Mission Chief to Bangladesh Rahul Anand is leading the delegation. Read:Not before January, officials say about IMF’s $4.5 bn loan to Bangladesh Fatima Yasmin, senior secretary of the Ministry of Finance, said, ”We are optimistic about getting a loan from the IMF to deal with the ongoing crisis due to the Russia-Ukraine war.” She said this to reporters on Wednesday after meeting members of the IMF delegation who called on her at the Secretariat. Earlier on October 21, the IMF in a statement released by its head office in Washington said the team would start discussions on economic and financial reforms and policies with the Bangladeshi authorities. The two sides will be hoping to make progress towards a staff-level agreement on funding in the coming months – the loan agreement is not expected to be finalised before January. A staff-level agreement means that the IMF team and the negotiating team of a sovereign country, in this case Bangladesh, are able to reach a deal on a country’s overall economic programme incorporating the loan, its disbursement schedule, and the planned reforms and policies. This will then be presented to the IMF Executive Board. The purpose of the visit is to start that process formally. Discussions will include borrowing from the IMF's Enhanced Credit Facility (ECF), Enhanced Funding Facility (EFF) program, and New Initiatives, Resilience and Sustainability Fund (RST) program. While the first two were part of the IMF’s existing lending toolkit, the RST was established last May, in light of the war in Ukraine breaking out to hurt the world economy’s recovery from the devastating pandemic. Read:$4.5bn loan: IMF delegation due this week to discuss conditions The newly-established fund is meant “to help countries build resilience to external shocks and ensure sustainable growth, contributing to their long-term balance of payments stability.” Last July, the IMF confirmed that Bangladesh had become the fourth country to apply for a loan under the RST facility. Abdur Rouf Talukder,  Governor of Bangladesh Bank, recently returned from the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, and said there were positive indications on a loan agreement being reached between the two parties.