The government is likely to issue Tk 25.04 billion bonds for Agrani Bank to pay dues of cash crunch Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) and arrange further credit for procuring fuel oil from the international market.

“Agrani Bank will arrange further credit to the country’s lone fuel oil importing corporation if the government issues bonds for the said amount,” said a senior official of the Agrani Bank.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith on September 10 this year directed the authority concerned to issue bond for mitigating the financial risk of Agrani Bank.

BPC in a letter to finance ministry sought minimum fund requirement of Tk 10.49 billion to overcome its liquidity shortage. The corporation at a meeting at the finance ministry last week was asked to inform the ministry about its fund requirement.

The corporation has also submitted a ‘Cash Flow Statement’ till June 30 this year on the basis of consensus among BPC and four state owned commercial banks. Meanwhile, the corporation has projected import of around 6.50 million tonnes of oil in the current fiscal year (FY 2011-12) at a cost of Tk 460 billion (US$ 6.21 billion), up by 53 per cent from the previous fiscal year's Taka 300 billion.

Total loss of BPC during last fiscal year (2010-11) stood at Tk 81.98 billion while the finance ministry disbursed Tk 57.91 billion as soft credit. The corporation’s total outstanding with the finance ministry amounted to Tk 24.07 billion during last fiscal year, according to the finance ministry.

After retuning from Washington, finance minister would hold a meeting at the finance ministry to discuss cash crises of BPC and state-owned commercial banks. The proposals of raising price of fuel oil and electricity would be discussed at the meeting.

BPC also sought loans directly from overseas lenders to meet its mounting oil import bill.

The HSBC, Citibank and Standard Chartered Bank would be the lead arrangers of loan, BPC chairman Md Muktabir Ali earlier told the press last week.

News: Daily Sun/ BAngladesh/ Oct-04-2011