Washington, June 21: International Monetary Fund has approved a three-year USD 490 million credit under the poverty reduction and growth facility for Bangladesh, which would enable the country to strengthen its economic reform programme for 2003-06. PRGF is IMF's concessional facility for low-income countries based on country-owned poverty reduction strategies adopted in a participatory process involving civil society and development partners and articulated in a poverty reduction strategy paper.
According to IMF the credit comes in the wake of Bangladesh's improved economic performance.
"Over the past year, Bangladesh's economic performance has strengthened as a result of the authorities' prudent macroeconomic management and renewal of structural reform," said IMF's deputy managing director and acting chair Shigemitsu Sugisaki.
Earlier yesterday, the World Bank also approved two credit supports worth 536 million dollars to Bangladesh for the country's "encouraging" progress on poverty reduction and economic reforms.
Bangladesh's national strategy for economic growth, poverty reduction, and social development provides a coherent and comprehensive policy framework for halving poverty by 2015.
"Within this strategy, the authorities have adopted a three-year PRGF-supported programme designed to maintain macroeconomic stability, accelerate structural reforms and improve the investment climate," Sugisaki informed. Bureau Report