BR to purchase 200 passenger coaches

Bangladesh Railway (BR) will purchase 200 metre gauge (MG) passenger carriages with a hard-term loan of Tk713.51 crore ($84.97 million) to be financed by Credit Agrocole Corporate and Investment Bank.  

Interest rate payable for the loan is Euribor plus two percent with 15-year repayment and a 3-year grace period arrangement.

The standing committee on non-concessional loan yesterday approved the loan proposal.

The meeting was presided over by Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal at his Sher-e-Bangla Nagar office.

After the meeting, the finance minister told reporters that the government was long looking for finance for purchasing the BR passenger carriage.

"It is an old project approved in 2011. No financier was available for it. Finally, we got one. The cost of fund is not that much as rate of Euribor is now at the negative range. We will need to pay higher if Euribor moves upward in future," he said. 

The finance minister said total cost of the BR passenger carriage purchase was Tk927.51 crore. Out of the total, the government would  provide Tk213.99 crore, he added.

The meeting awarded a Chinese company named Sifang Company Ltd, later renamed CRRC Sifang Company Ltd, a subsidiary of China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry (Group) Corporation (abbreviated as CRRC), the work to procure the coaches.

The purchase is scheduled to be completed by June 30, 2020.