DHAKA, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- The Bangladeshi government has signed two financing agreements totaling 457 million U.S. dollars with the World Bank (WB) to promote the country's development in infrastructure and labor-intensive industries.
Kazi Shofiqul Azam, secretary of Bangladesh's Economic Relations Department, and Qimiao Fan, World Bank country director for Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal, signed the deals on behalf of their respective sides in the capital Dhaka on Sunday.
The 357 million U.S. dollars Investment Promotion and Financing Facility Project II will help build local financial institutions' capacity to provide long-term financing to private companies to undertake infrastructure projects in diverse sectors, including power and energy, ICT, waste management, water treatment, energy saving equipment, container terminals, land ports, roads, and bridges, said the bank.
The other one, a 100 million U.S. dollars Export Competitiveness for Jobs Project, will help create 90,000 more jobs by focusing beyond the ready-made garment sector and diversifying exports in other labor-intensive sectors.
The project will help firms access international markets, overcome technology, infrastructure and skills shortfalls, and enable them to comply with international quality standards. These improvements will help Bangladesh increase the number of exporting firms in target sectors by around 30 percent.
