Bangladesh witnessed a 10.44 percent drop in foreign aid in the first 11 months of the just concluded fiscal year 2005-2006 (July 2005-June 2006), mainly due to slow pace in project implementation, the local newspaper The Daily Star reported Saturday.

The amount of overseas aid the country received during the July 2005 to May 2006 reached 1037.28 million U.S. dollars, while it was 1158.9 million U.S. dollars during the corresponding period of the previous fiscal year.

The low foreign aid has prompted the government to borrow from banks an amount of 50 billion taka (about 710 million U.S. dollars) in fiscal year 2005-2006, although the earlier decision was to take a 36 billion taka (about 510 million U.S. dollars) loan from the banks.

On the other hand, due to slow implementation of reform projects, the government failed to get budgetary support from the donors. As a result, the overall fiscal cost is also increasing.

Source: Xinhua