ADB keen to create a cheque of $500m

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The Asian Development Bank might provide $500 million to Bangladesh at first as budget support to be able to help the united states improve its health system and assist the vulnerable groups as coronavirus is fast transmitting in the united states.

The amount may go up, said numerous finance ministry officials yesterday. 

The Manila-based development lender has recently made commitment to the bigger ups of the federal government to approve the support within a week or two, the officials said.

"As a longstanding development partner, the ADB is focused on assisting Bangladesh in this difficult time. We've initiated the procedure of quickly exploring the financing modality and other details in close coordination with the government and other stakeholders," said Manmohan Parkash, country director of the ADB for Bangladesh, in a statement.

The Bangladesh government has requested the ADB to provide assist with help tackle challenges of a potential COVID-19 outbreak in the united states, he said.


The press release premiered after Parkash's ending up in Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal in Dhaka. The discussions included the government's preparedness for mitigating any potential outbreak, its financial impact, and possible ADB support carrying out a government obtain assistance.

Parkash held several meetings with Kamal on the problem. The ADB also held a meeting with the health ministry.

The development lender would help Bangladesh procure testing kits, personal protective equipment for doctors and equipment for hospitals.

The ADB has occurrence in many countries and assured Bangladesh of using its reach to help the country source the items.

The Manila-based multilateral lender also really wants to understand how many hospitals will be focused on treating coronavirus-affected patients, Kamal said last week.

The commitment from the ADB came as Bangladesh yesterday confirmed the second death from the coronavirus outbreak. On March 18, the government confirmed the first death from the novel coronavirus.

Yesterday, four more people tested positive for the virus, taking the full total number of confirmed cases to 24.

The ADB support would also be utilized to provide social protection to vulnerable groups.

The coronavirus pandemic could trigger a global economical crisis, destroying up to 25 million jobs around the world if governments usually do not act fast to shield workers from the impact, said the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in a report last week.

Irrespective of size, all firms are facing serious issues from the coronavirus fallout such as for example immense declines in revenue, insolvencies and job cuts, said Tuomo Poutiainen, country director of the ILO Bangladesh.

"Sustaining their day-to-day businesses will be particularly problematic for small and medium enterprises," he said, in a statement to The Daily Star, on Thursday.

As educational institutions across the country have already turn off to slow the spread of the virus and monetary activities have slowed to some extent amid people's thinning occurrence on the streets, it has hit the low-income groups particularly hard.

The monetary pain for the low-income groups and the ones working in the informal sector would exacerbate further if the problem worsens.

Business and employment would confront adverse impact if economical activities need to turn off in the event of coronavirus outbreak in the united states, said the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) yesterday in a briefing.

"Workers usually work under non permanent contractual arrangement particularly those work in small-scale and informal enterprises will be influenced most. Workers who work in labour-intensive formal and export-oriented industries would be adversely affected," the think-tank said. 

The ADB has announced $6.5 billion initial package to address the immediate needs of its developing member countries as they react to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The lender's response to date also includes $2 million announced on 26 February to aid response in all of its developing members.

The ADB includes a strong history of responding rapidly to provide targeted support to Bangladesh in times of emergencies, including natural disasters such as for example floods and cyclones and other disasters like influx of individuals in Cox's Bazar camps from over the Myanmar border.
Source: https://www.thedailystar.net

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