South Korea has recently decided to provide US$ 100 million from its Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF) to Bangladesh for helping the country in recovering its economy hit by the corona pandemic.
The South Korea has already provided US$ 50 million of EDCF soft loan as budgetary support in December 2020 to help Bangladesh’s efforts for fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic, a Korean embassy release said here today.
It is the second provision of this type of concessional loan, it added.
EDCF is a Korea’s development financing programme for assisting the socio-economic development of developing countries.
The new concessional loan of US$100 million will be used to implement several projects aimed at advancing public finance management system and improving small and medium-sized businesses struggling from the repercussion of the pandemic.
The amount would be released as soon as the Loan Agreement is signed between the Korea EXIM Bank and the Bangladesh Government which is expected to be done within the year.
Bangladesh is the second largest recipient of the EDCF loans worldwide in aggregate amount. So far, the Republic of Korea has funded 24 development projects of Bangladesh with a total amount of US$1.2 billion through the EDCF.