Interest expense on foreign loans increased by 162%

In the space of one year, the interest cost of foreign loans taken for various mega projects has increased by 162 percent.

This information has been revealed in a recent statistics of the Finance Department.

On the other hand, domestic debt interest cost increased by 7 percent during the same period. Among these internal loans, interest on bank sector loans increased by 21 percent.

But interest expense from non-banks or savings bonds has turned negative. In the nine months of the last financial year, the interest expenditure on domestic debt was Tk59.589 crore. It was Tk55.969 crore in the same period in the previous financial year. In the gap of one year, the interest expense has increased by 3.62 crore.

According to the finance department, in the next three financial years, the government will have to spend only 4 lakh 5 thousand crore taka. It is possible to meet the development expenditure (ADP) of one and a half years with that amount. In the current financial year, ADP expenditure has been estimated at Tk2 lakh 65 thousand crore.

The interest expenditure is revealed in the 'Medium Term Macroeconomic Policy Statement - 2024-2025 to 2026-27' published by the Finance Department.