Energy Bangla

The finance ministry has issued a counter guarantee of $200 million in favour of Bangladesh Bank as the central bank facilitates the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation in sourcing foreign fund for importing fuel oil.
The fund will be sourced from International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation, which requires a guarantee from the central bank and a counter guarantee from the government, a top finance official said.
‘We have issued counter guarantee of $200 million in favour of Bangladesh Bank to facilitate the BPC’s oil imports,’ a top finance ministry official told New Age on Monday.
The counter guarantee was issued in the past week on three conditions, he added.
‘The counter guarantee issued from the finance ministry will be considered as a sovereign guarantee,’ the official said, explaining that the government took the responsibility of repaying the amount by itself to International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation if the petroleum corporation failed to pay back the borrowed amount.
The corporation will be liable to maintain its foreign loan limit to be fixed under the extended credit facility programme of IMF, stipulates the condition.
It also makes mandatory for the corporation to report the ministry on its portfolio on supplier’s credit or any other short-term foreign loan.
The corporation will have to inform the ministry regularly about its credits if taken from local banks or financial institutions, an office order of the finance ministry said.
A senior corporation official said that they had got no chance of becoming defaulter to both International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation on repayment terms or to finance ministry on reporting.
He said the corporation had turned out to be a self-reliant state firm, thanks to sliding petroleum prices in global markets