Bangladesh is seeking $2 billion from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) amid efforts to bolster its foreign exchange reserves, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday.
Bangladesh’s $416 billion economy has been one of the fastest-growing in the world for years, but rising energy and food prices because of the Russia-Ukraine war have inflated its import bill and the current account deficit.
The government wrote letters to the two lenders seeking $1 billion each, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
This comes days after Bangladesh’s Daily Star newspaper reported that the country wanted $4.5 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), including for budgetary and balance-of-payment support.
The country’s finance ministry, World Bank and ADB did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Bangladesh’s July to May current account deficit was $17.2 billion, compared with a deficit of $2.78 billion in the year-earlier period, according to central bank data, as its trade deficit widened and remittances fell.
