Bangladesh is seeking about $2 billion in loans from multilateral lenders by June in a bid to finance imports of liquefied natural gas and other fuels during the summer, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The South Asian nation expects $1.3 billion from the International Monetary Fund under an existing program, along with about $700 million from the Asian Development Bank, the report said.
The funds are part of a broader strategy to ensure uninterrupted power supplies during the summer without raising domestic prices. They will also help ease pressure on foreign exchange reserves.
“We’re negotiating an interest rate which is a bit lower than the market rate,” Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir, the prime minister’s adviser on finance and planning said.
“There is reasonable progress with the Asian Development Bank, so we will definitely get that. We’ll likely get the IMF as well,” Mahmud Titumir added.
Bangladesh spends roughly $12 billion annually on energy imports, including crude oil, liquefied natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas and coal, according to government data. LNG is the fastest-growing component of the country’s energy bill. In 2025, Bangladesh spent about $4 billion to import 109 LNG cargoes, up from about $3 billion for 86 cargoes in 2024.