Of the myriad issues clamouring for urgent attention that the interim government has inherited from its predecessor, the humongous amount of public debt is one. Some of the big external debts against mega projects have been reaching maturity. The US$12.65 billion Rooppur nuclear power plant, 90 per cent finance of which is being provided by Russian government as loan, is one example where the grace period for the loan is about to be over. Since these are bilateral loans, the terms are usually harsher than those from multilateral donors like World Bank, ADB and IMF. So, management of these debts is turning out to be a major challenge before the interim government, especially at a time when the foreign exchange reserve is dwindling. Unless appropriate short-, mid- and long-term strategies are adopted to address such debts, the country may fall into a debt trap when debt servicing begins to fail potentially crowding out other spending. These and other issues demanding urgent attention came up at a recent discussion event in the city where eminent economists from local policy think tanks expressed their views and concerns about the public debt management and other emergent issues following July revolution.

The fallout from economic downturn, coupled with runaway corruption was bound to affect the balance of payments of the country. Today, policymakers are indeed in a fix about how to manage the repayment of principal-plus-interest on loans taken from international sources for various projects. None is more glaring than the one for the country's first nuclear power project viz. Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (RNPP). The recent turmoil that transformed the political-cum-economic outlook, has put Dhaka on a collision course with Moscow, especially over what to do about the $11 billion plus Russian loan that has made RNPP possible. This remains a G2G (government-to-government) deal and also the largest foreign financed infrastructure project of the country under any administration. There is no contention about the fact that repayment will have to be made.

Global stock indexes reached record highs on Thursday after chipmaker Micron Technology's upbeat forecast, while oil dropped on a media report that Saudi Arabia plans to dump its unofficial crude price target of $100 a barrel. Silver rose to its highest level in nearly 12 years, with interest rate cuts by major central banks lifting investment interest in precious metals.

The 68 MW Shirajgonj solar park has been supplying power to the national grid since July, 2024. Developed on 214 acres of land located on the flood plains of the river Jamuna (near the Jamuna Multi Purpose Bridge). the solar park has so far installed 156,576 units of interconnected solar panels with the capacity of 545 watt each. The plant is being operated by the Bangladesh-China Renewable Energy Company Limited (BCRECL)-- a joint venture of North-West Power Generation Company of Bangladesh and China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation. BCRECL invested approximately US$ 90 million for implementing the plant and signed a contract with BPDB to supply power to BPDB grid for 20 years at a tariff of US 10.20 cents per unit.