Borrowing model must change

Finance Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury has said Bangladesh cannot achieve its ambition of becoming a trillion-dollar economy by 2034 through continued reliance on borrowing from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, stressing that the country must increasingly raise funds through its capital market.
“We can never become a trillion-dollar economy by 2034 by borrowing from the IMF and the World Bank,” Khosru said on Sunday.

He said the government was shifting towards a market-based financial system and would no longer allow businesses, including state-owned enterprises, to depend excessively on public funds or high-interest bank loans.

“I have cancelled my meeting with the IMF. I have told them plainly that the government is not bound to accept their conditions. We need $50 billion every year.

How much will the IMF give us? And then we would have to accept conditions again. All that is out from now on. We will raise money from the market and do business,” he said.

The minister made the remarks at World Investor Week 2026, organised by the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) at Khamarbari in the capital.

He said the country’s financial architecture was being overhauled, with the capital market expected to play a much larger role in financing economic activity.

“The face of Bangladesh’s capital market will change completely within the next year,” Khosru said, expressing optimism that the market would become significantly stronger if the current trend continued without disruption.

“If there is no accident and the capital market keeps running the way it is now, a huge positive change will come in the market within the next year,” he said.

According to the minister, the capital market is now in a much better position than in the past, while investor confidence is gradually returning.

He said several large foreign companies had also expressed interest in investing in Bangladesh’s stock market.

“I was not confident about how I could approach big foreign companies with the capital market in this state. But when I talked to them, they expressed interest.

They are constantly keeping track of Bangladesh. They trust the current leadership of Bangladesh. They will come to the Bangladesh market soon,” he said.

Urging market participants to move beyond past setbacks, Khosru said greater transparency and integrity would require stronger self-regulation.

“If we want integrity and transparency, we must become self-regulated. Every institution, including brokers, exchanges, investors and financial entities, must play the role of a self-regulator. I do not believe in regulatory bodies,” he said.

He also stressed the need to integrate the capital market with the wider financial and economic system. The National Board of Revenue (NBR), Bangladesh Bank and the capital market had previously operated as separate entities, he said.

“The NBR, Bangladesh Bank and the capital market had so far worked like isolated islands. Now we have built an ecosystem where everyone will work together,” he said.
Khosru warned that businesses dependent on high-cost bank borrowing would struggle to compete in the global market.

Both public and private institutions, he said, often turn to banks for financing at high interest rates whenever they need funds, a practice that is not sustainable.

“Money must be raised from the market, and the best avenue for that is the capital market. We are also working to strengthen the bond market,” he said.

The minister also ruled out continued government financing of the business activities of state-owned enterprises.

“Why should the government pay to buy aircraft? It cannot be that the government provides taxpayers’ money and enterprises do business with it,” he said.

He said the depth of Bangladesh’s shallow capital market would be expanded as part of efforts to make the economy more market-oriented and strengthen its financial foundations.