by Jahangir Shah in Prothom Alo, Aug 20, 2023Bangladesh has apparently lost its interest in undertaking projects under the Indian Line of Credits (LOC). It has already withdrawn eight projects from the Indian cluster loan during the last three years, while the authorities proposed withdrawal of four more projects. The situation is largely attributed to a range of factors, including strict loan terms, high demands of contractors, and hassle of taking approval at every point,…
Posts tagged as “loan”
by Prithvi Man Shrestha in The Kathmandu Post, July 15, 2023Since the ordinance that criminalised the practice of loan sharking lost its validity on July 5, the District Administration Office, Dhanusa is struggling to bring alleged loan sharks to compromise and settle disputes with their victims. Last week, the government was unable to table a bill in the lower house to replace the ordinance, which was introduced in early May, owing to parliamentary obstruction by…
byRejaul Karim Byron in The Daily Star on June 18, 2023The government’s bid to pay off Russia’s dues — of about $330 million — for the Rooppur power plant using the Chinese yuan has run into fresh complications after the last round of sanctions by the US on Russia. Earlier on April 12, the US imposed sanctions on over 120 targets, including JSC Nauchno-Issledovatelsky i Konstruktorsky Institut Montazhnoy Tekhnologii Atomstroy (NIKIMT), the engineering, procurement and…
by Rejaul Karim Byron in The Daily Star, Jun 1, 2023The government’s foreign debt servicing burden may rise by as much as 45 percent in the next fiscal year due to the devaluation of taka and higher utilisation of foreign loans in recent years. About Tk 24,700 crore would be set aside in fiscal 2023-24’s budget for foreign loan repayment, according to finance ministry officials. It is about $2.42 billion considering the current exchange rate…
by Anup Ojha in The Kathmandu Post, May 3, 2023On May 1, when the world marked the International Workers’ Day, 70-year-old Ram Kawal Chamar was sitting quietly in a tent at Shanti Batika, Ratnapark with one arm in a plaster cast. Chamar, one of the several loan shark victims, was badly injured on April 17 during a clash between the police and hundreds of other such victims when they tried to reach Singha Durbar to…
Three Nepali women escape their coercive Chinese employers in Laos. They still feel unsafe back home
by Anup Ojha in The Kathmandu Post, January 4, 2023Lalita’s husband, Rajan, doesn’t have free time to think these days. His brain is occupied by a loan of Rs290,000, which he paid to a Chinese agent two months ago to enable his sick wife to return from a Laos-based call centre. Rajan, 35, is now learning the Korean language and is into ride-sharing gigs, so that he can pay his four-year-old son’s monthly school fee…