External pressure behind World Bank's withdrawal from Padma Bridge: says PM Hasina urging it to look into future

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday blamed the external pressure for the cancellation of USD1.2 billion credit the World Bank had committed to financing the iconic Padma Bridge that Bangladesh finally constructed with its own money.

“I regret that the World Bank moved away from financing this most important project (Padma Multi-purpose Bridge) owing to external pressure,” she said.

The premier said this while addressing an informal interaction with the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank at the Shihata Conference room of its headquarters here.

Hasina, however, wished to look into the future of the partnership between Bangladesh and the World Bank.

“We now wish to look into the future of our partnership,” she said.

The PM is now in Washington DC on a week-long official visit to the US mainly to take part in the celebration of the 50 years of partnership between Bangladesh and the World Bank.

Though the bank's promised loan was scrapped in 2012, Bangladesh, under the strong leadership of Hasina, went ahead with self-financing the bridge and inaugurated it on June 25 last year.

The PM asked the World Bank to must remain focused on its core purpose of poverty alleviation and development financing.

She mentioned that the World Bank is now committed to 53 different projects in Bangladesh, involving USD 15 billion. This is part of the grants and loans of USD 39 billion so far offered by the Washington-based multilateral lender.

The prime minister said that the present situation gives an indication of Bangladesh economy’s growth opportunities and absorptive capacity.

“Bangladesh has never defaulted on its debt repayment, or fallen into a so-called ‘debt trap’,” she stated.

In this regard, she said that the strong performance of Bangladesh in human capital formation is matched by "our investment in infrastructure mega-projects."

“The construction of the 6.1 km Padma Multi-purpose Bridge with our own financial and technical resources is a sign of our economic maturity,” she proudly said.

Hasina said that the World Bank is actively engaged in digital transformation of Bangladesh as the government has kept its words to the people by building together a ‘Digital Bangladesh’ by 2021.

She mentioned that the government has set its next target to become a knowledge-based ‘Smart Bangladesh’ by 2041.

“I call upon our development partners like the World Bank to continue investing in our digital and physical infrastructure. We also seek international support for trade diversification, investment promotion and domestic resource generation,” she said.

She mentioned that the World Bank has extended grant support for the 1.2 million forcibly displaced Rohingya from Myanmar in Bangladesh while their prolonged presence is becoming a huge challenge for the country.