A high-powered mission of the French government will arrive in Dhaka on a five-day visit in order to discuss major conditions for the proposed €50 million loan agreement for upgradation of safety standards of the country’s export-oriented readymade garment (RMG) sector, officials said. The visit of the mission of AFD – the French agency for development – aims to discuss various legal and technical aspects of the loan that had been proposed earlier, they added. The mission will stay in Dhaka until May 12 next. The last AFD mission visited Dhaka from January 1721 this year. The main objectives of the mission are to discuss legal and technical aspects of the project, talk about the details of financial agreement to be signed under the project and address critical issues related to implementation framework, according to sources. The board of the French development agency approved in December last the proposal for providing the loan to Bangladesh, the sources said. The draft credit facility agreement is under final review and will be sent to the Bangladesh authorities concerned by the AFD. AFD also managed to mobilise other development partners into the project. In November, 2015, the board of European Union committed a grant of €6.3 million. GIZ, the German company that specialises in international development, could also join the initiative as technical assistance partner which fielded a mission to Dhaka in March, 2016, according to the AFD. The KfW, a German government-owned development bank, obtained approval from its line ministry to participate in the project through a grant of €4 million in March last. It aims to assist and support Bangladeshi RMG factories to upgrade their safety standards (on a priority basis) as well as their social and environmental performances, sources concerned said. Since 2014, AFD has organised four field missions in Bangladesh to assess the possibility of setting up a creditline facility in favour of the country’s RMG sector. The last two missions were organised in January and May 2015, sources said. “It is now essential that the project starts as soon as possible in order to meet financial needs of RMG sector. RMG factories are currently facing an important time constraint since they are expected to complete at the earliest the corrective action plans (CAPs) prepared by the Accord, the Alliance and the National Tripartite Plan of Action (NTPA),” an earlier AFD letter said. The loan agreement will be signed between the Economic Relations Division (ERD) and AFD. AFD is a public financial institution that implements the policy defined by the French government. It works to fight poverty and promote sustainable development.
