Special Correspondent: Bangladesh has asked 500 million US dollar loan from the World Bank to purchase vaccines. Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal has called on the World Bank to expedite the disbursement of loans.

This was stated in a press release sent by the Ministry of Finance on Saturday (October 24).

As part of the World Bank-IMF Annual Meeting-2020, a virtual meeting was held under the chairmanship of Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal. The Bangladesh delegation and the World Bank's South Asia Vice President Hartwig Schaefer attended the virtual meeting.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Finance Minister thanked the World Bank for its continued support for the overall development of Bangladesh. He sought the co-operation of Mr. Hartwig Schaefer in providing loan assistance for the purchase of Covid-19 vaccine to Bangladesh, which is ranked 3rd among the IDA countries in terms of population.

The Finance Minister also lauded the timely and faster initiatives taken by the World Bank to tackle the Kovid-19 epidemic. In this context, he mentioned the issue of providing 100 million US Dollars loan assistance to Bangladesh to deal with COVID-19. The World Bank also assured that the issue of Bangladesh must be viewed positively.

In the meeting, the desire of the Prime Minister was discussed to ensure the vaccines for all as soon as it is invented. In the current financial year, Bangladesh is requested to provide 500 million US Dollars for the purpose of importing, purchasing, storing, transporting and distributing vaccine in addition to the funds allocated to Bangladesh under IDA 19 of the World Bank.

The total allocation for the proposed Covid-19 Recovery and Response Project is 500 million US Dollars to offset the multi-affected damage to the country caused by Covid-19. Bangladesh has strongly requested the World Bank to release at least 250 million US Dollars on an emergency basis in the current financial year.