According to a report of the Business Standard- an English language daily of Bangladesh, Bangladesh eyes for more than $1 billion loan from the World Bank for the first time at no interest as a boost to its depleting foreign exchange reserves. The newspaper also reported citing an anonymity-sought finance ministry official that the ministry is in discussions with the IMF to get $4.5 billion at low interest rates as support for the country’s balance of payments.
Thus, a total of $5.5 billion is anticipated over the next three years from the two US-based lenders as part of preventative steps to deal with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war-related external payment imbalance and the declination in Foreign Exchange Reserve. Besides, it is widely anticipated that Bangladesh’s export earnings may drop in the coming days as dangers associated with the recession in Europe and the United States (US) increase.
According to a draft of the Country Partnership Framework (CPF) programme for FY23-FY27, the World Bank would also give the country $10 billion during these five years and will keep $8.24 billion in the pipeline. Additionally, its sister organization, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), will provide $4.5 billion in financing for the growth of the private sector, and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) will provide $695 million in annual guarantees for external loans in the manufacturing and energy sectors.
Furthermore, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), New Development Bank (NDB) and other multilateral lenders have committed to providing Bangladesh with extra credit support. As global economy slows down, Bangladesh, in order to alleviate the pressure, may swing in to taking loans from multilateral agencies though past precedents involving western lenders offered financial sufferings.
A tale of economic hit man
John Perkins, an American author, described in his book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” that the damaging economic tactics used by western nations through multilateral financial organizations promote their interests against adversarial governments as well as least developed and middle income countries. The phrase “economic hit man” refers to a person, such as Perkins himself, whose job it is to construct, develop, or conjure up the necessary financial projections and plans out of thin air in order to support the justification for harmful and disastrous projects in developing nations. Economic hit man tactics attempt to further ensnare developing nations in debt, dependence, and corruption among the elite before seizing control of their natural resources and transferring vast sums of money mostly to the US-led western nations through trade and legal channels.
John Perkins described how he was hired by a U.S. corporation to influence foreign countries into taking significant infrastructure loans in his best-selling book. He claimed that while for them the conflict was about preserving their traditions and offspring, for the United States it was about gaining control over natural resources, money, and power.
A sophisticated, well-coordinated infrastructure of businesses, banks, foreign policy organizations, and international governmental and non-governmental organizations serves as the means for attaining this devastating end. Unquestionably, the majority of the world’s natural resources that are found in the other parts of the world have been syphoned, pillaged, and plundered to fund the west’s ongoing destructive lifestyle.
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), which have designed trade distortions in place as a result of previous General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and World Trade Organization (WTO) “negotiations,” serve to police the global financial system and regulate the economies of least developed and middle income countries. In fact, the pattern resulted in higher degrees of dominance, dependence, and control because the colonial structure’s obvious remnants were concealed by the presence of local elites who managed and maintained the system in exchange for hefty fees or secret accounts in American and European banks.
The global institutions of the World Bank and the IMF are home to the economic hit man who works to advance the interests of the economies of the US-led west at the expense of others. He makes certain that local economies are structurally ruined and continue to be dependent on, subordinate to, and exploitable to the economies of Europe and the United States. An economic hitman makes it easier to maintain the flow of natural resources to the west and unrestricted access to these exploited nations’ markets, often at the expense of local production.
A syndicate for economic full spectrum dominance
Given the dominance of the US dollar in the current global monetary system and its pricing power, any significant action by the Federal Reserve will undoubtedly have an impact on the debt structure or financial stability of other nations, particularly emerging economies.
History has shown that changes in the value of the dollar trigger financial crises in developing countries, and that the US often benefits from these crises while the solvency of these countries is severely harmed. Besides, the IMF has long been viewed with distrust by developing countries because it has supported disastrous privatizations. Only when impoverished nations privatize their economies and provide western multinationals unrestricted access to their markets and raw materials, the IMF and the World Bank offer loans.
Tellingly, the IMF’s own auditor stated in a report from 2014 that the IMF continues to be perceived as a club for wealthy countries, which limits how much other nations trust the IMF’s advice to be objective. The IMF auditor report stated that many of the organization’s members continued to retain the opinion that the lender gave its larger shareholders, such as the United States and Europe, preferential treatment. IMF and World Bank policies encourage export-oriented tactics that increase dependence on Western markets. They would only provide help if the debtor nation adopted austerity measures that hurt the weak, encouraged capital flight, and ceded economic sovereignty.
A harrowing tale
Whenever any country wishes to get out of the loan cycle of IMF and World Bank, they resort to tactics that hinder key projects that hold instrumental economic prospect. In this regard, the bridge over the river Padma, the longest and multipurpose, has become the monument of victory for the present government against the odds laid by western financial organizations. How? Let’s make it clear. It is a well-documented fact that a portion of the Padma Multipurpose Bridge’s construction was planned to be funded by the World Bank ten years ago, Bangladesh finalized a $1.2 billion credit agreement for the project, which had a $2.9 billion initial cost estimate. The World Bank, however, stopped the funding after learning of “allegations of fraud’’ in the consulting firm selection process for the bridge. After the project lost its access to western funding, it was in limbo. Later, the government of Bangladesh, which has vehemently refuted the accusations, looked for ways to win it back for fulfilling its political commitment to connect south Bengal with the rest of the country. As a result, the World Bank’s cancellation left the present government in a precarious position to continue the project with domestic funds. The corruption charge, which was looked into in both Bangladesh and Canada, was ultimately dropped in a Canadian court. Bangladesh eventually succeeded in finishing the ideal project, albeit at a very significant financial cost.
The way out
Is the nation and society merely a slave labor camp, a source of raw materials, and a captive market for the economies of the west, where the populace consumes goods, they do not produce? If not, society, the economy, and the politics must be built up to foster and direct everyone’s efforts toward a different set of objectives and the institutions that may help them be achieved. Before interacting with the economies of the west, Bangladesh, a big part of eastern civilizations, must also figure out how to group its competitive advantages, turn them into a market strength, and connect them regionally. New options must be dotted upon, to circumvent unfair and unjustified US-led western sanctions. If necessary, bilateral and multilateral trade must be carried through alternative currencies.
The economies of the eastern countries should be built and strengthened through regional trade and collaboration; this will not be the case if the emphasis is placed just on obtaining raw materials and low-cost labor for the manufacturing bases in Europe and the United States. Finally, Bangladesh needs to figure out how to shield and defend its economy from the evil financial instruments and tools that are made to target any emerging economies or to influence for adjustments in local and regional economic priorities. Real and long-term independence strongly depends on sound economic models that are not based on international loan financing or subordination to the economies of the west.