Bangladesh needs 24 bln USD annual infrastructure spending to join middle income club: AIIB report

by Naim-Ul-Karim

DHAKA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) — Bangladesh’s “Vision 2021” road map, planning to join the middle-income countries, requires 24 billion U.S. dollars worth of investments in infrastructure per year, according to an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) report.

“There is progress toward this target,” said the Beijing-based lender in the report titled ASIAN INFRASTRUCTURE FINANCE 2019 Bridging Borders: Infrastructure to Connect Asia and Beyond, released on Tuesday.

It said transaction activity (total closed and ongoing transaction value) was 2.9 billion U.S. dollars in 2014 and 3.4 billion in 2015, but 2016 saw a massive jump to 15.5 billion U.S. dollars.

According to the report, the amount was more than doubled in 2017 (31.4 U.S. dollars billion), increasing further to reach 46.0 billion U.S. dollars in 2018 (as of end-September 2018).

In 2014-2018, AIIB said 36 infrastructure sector transactions reached financial close in Bangladesh (21 of which reached financial close in 2016-2018).

Development financial institutions, along with China (the government and China Exim Bank), Japan (Japanese International Cooperation Agency) and India (Export-Import Bank of India) are the major funders of infrastructure development in the country, explaining the sizable number of multisectoral transactions through 2014-2018, said the report.

It, however, said the currency in which infrastructure transactions are financed in Bangladesh depends on the ticket-size and the debt tenor/maturity.

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