It was always going to be a hard year for Bangladesh. Last summer, amid an economic collapse, protesters toppled a tyrant and pushed the country to the brink of chaos, the New York Times reported. Then a month ago, as a new government was still working to steady Bangladesh’s economy, came the devastating news that the United States was placing a new 37 percent charge on the country’s goods. Bangladesh relies on revenue from its exports to buy fuel, food and other essentials.
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Bangladesh’s new central bank governor said the country is seeking an additional $3 billion from the International Monetary Fund as it looks to recover from recent political turmoil, and is buying dollars from local banks to meet unpaid debt, Bloomberg News reported. The South Asian country has begun talks with the Washington-based IMF for the additional loan, central bank Governor Ahsan H. Mansur said in an interview in the capital Dhaka. Bangladesh secured $4.7 billion in funding from the IMF last year.
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The International Monetary Fund said it would work with Bangladesh to design a loan program request in coming months that meets the country's economic and social dynamics and has "safeguards" in the event of a further deterioration in economic conditions, Reuters reported. In a revised statement of support for Bangladesh's request for a loan from the new IMF Resilience and Sustainability Trust, the Fund said that work on an RST loan will proceed as the new trust is being made operational.
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Fashion brands and retailers re-opening around the world to patchy demand, and carrying unsold stock from spring have cut fall orders by as much as two-thirds in moves spelling more pain for Asian suppliers, Reuters reported. With shoppers still wary of catching the coronavirus at stores, retailers are leaving buying decisions to the last minute and planning on selling all-season basics such as men’s chinos and t-shirts leftover from spring through into fall. “We don’t think orders for clothing will pick up anytime soon.
Bangladeshi banks are facing another jump in already-crippling levels of bad debt as a move by the central bank to ease the situation backfires, Bloomberg News reported. In an effort to revive credit growth, Bangladesh Bank in May introduced an amnesty program that allowed delinquent borrowers to clean up their books by making a small upfront payment and then clearing the rest of their debt over 10 years at favorable interest rates. But it also triggered a rush by healthy companies to reschedule debt on the same terms, which now threatens to overwhelm the banks.
Despite Bangladesh Bank efforts in bringing out business from default culture, the uptrend in classified loans continue for the consecutive third quarter in September, the Dhaka Tribune reported. It rose to 11.6% in July-September quarter from 10.75% in the previous quarter, according to Bangladesh Bank data. The rate had dropped to 8.93% in December last from 12.79% in the previous quarter, thanks to huge loan rescheduling taking advantage of a relaxed policy.
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BASIC Bank's default loans continue to escalate in the face of irregularities, despite Bangladesh Bank's efforts to keep it in check, The Daily Star reported. By the end of June, it is forecast to hit Tk 1,700 crore, up 13 percent from March 30, according to a finance ministry report placed in parliament on Thursday. The figure is 13.45 percent of the state-run scheduled bank's total outstanding loans, and a central bank official tipped the actual figures to be much higher as the bank showed a huge amount of bad loans to be non-classified.
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As the global slowdown weakens demand for China's exports, bankruptcies and joblessness are spreading throughout southern China, a main manufacturing zone, the Wall Street Journal reported today. China's customs agency recently reported that half of China's toy exporters that it tracks--some 3,600 companies--were driven out of the market in the first seven months of this year. A majority of those were in and around Dongguan, often called the toy-making capital of the world. Higher prices for energy and raw materials have driven up costs.
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