Asian Development Bank became the top lender by providing loans worth around $2.4 billion to the government of Bangladesh in the financial year of 2024-25, featured by the regime change, said officials.
The Manila-based multilateral lender provided around 28.23 per cent of the overall foreign loan of $8.5 billion obtained under the interim government assumed power on August 8, three days after the Awami League was ousted in the wake of a mass uprising.
Bangladesh, which depends on both multilateral and bilateral lenders for concessional loans for its development, needs to change its external loan policy following the country鈥檚 graduation from least developed country bloc on November 24, 2026, limiting the access to concessional loans.
Officials said ADB extended over $500 million more as loan to the GoB than World Bank to re-emerge as the top lender in FY 25 after the gap of two fiscal years.
WB, which disbursed $2.01 billion in FY25, became the country鈥檚 top lender in FY 24 by extending loan worth $2.1 billion and also FY23 by giving loan of $1.9 billion, according to the annual reports of the Economic Relations Division.
The ERD that has released the draft annual report of FY25 in the past week showed that Japan, as usual, held the top position of among the bilateral lender and third position in the overall lenders with extension of $1.57 billion.
Russia held the fourth position with a loan of 675 million and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Beijing-based multilateral lender, held the fifth position with the loan of $527 million in FY25.
However, the overall disbursement of foreign loans in FY 25 was around $1.3 billion less than $9.8 billion received by the GoB in FY24.
ERD officials attributed the interim government policy to avoiding foreign loans for unnecessary development projects for the lower overall foreign loan in FY25 than FY 24.
In the past July, ERD directed ministries and divisions to maintain the time value of money and avoid unnecessary delays in projects implemented with foreign loan.
Ministries and divisions have also been asked to obtain clearance from the finance division regarding the terms of the subsidiary loan agreement of the foreign loans, said ERD officials.聽聽聽
The ERD annual report FY25 said the disbursement of the foreign loan was around $47.79 billion over the past five fiscal years between FY21 and FY25 with an average of $ 9.55 billion for each fiscal.
It also said that ADB鈥檚 loan portfolio in Bangladesh stood at $13.14 billion spanning over 52 projects in agriculture, natural resources, rural development, health, education, social protection, energy, transport, water and other urban infrastructure.
ADB鈥檚 current Country Partnership Strategy between 2025 and 2028 projected to provide loan of $9 billion and standby loan of 4 billion in order to support investment in infrastructure, education, health, agriculture, finance, governance, climate change and policy reforms said the annual report.
