The government today scrapped a plan of creating "Bangladesh Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF)" from country's forex reserves.
The Cabinet, with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in chair, approved a proposal on cancelling its previous decision that gave approval for creating the fund.
The initial plan was approved in 2017 to create the SWF with a $10 billion authorised capital from its foreign currency reserves to use it for "any purpose in public interest".
With a primary capital of $2 billion, the fund was supposed to get $2 billion every year from the reserves.
Bangladesh's forex reserve, which witnessed a rapid surge during the pandemic, has now fallen to the $41.38 billion-mark as of 15 June, thanks to higher imports and lower remittance inflow.
This has caused concerns for the country in the matter of spending foreign currencies.
Amid the concerns, the government planned to shelve low-priority development projects and suspend foreign tours for officials – the second round of belt-tightening after the pandemic.
