DHAKA, May 31, 2022 (BSS) – The United States (US) Ambassador in Dhaka Peter Haas today refuted speculations by some quarters about Bangladesh’s economic situation in reference to Sri Lanka’s scenario, saying Bangladesh did “extremely well” regarding the macro financial stand point.

   “Basically Bangladesh is not Sri Lanka, the country that has been exceedingly careful on with whom it would borrow money from and under what terms,” he said during an interaction with diplomatic reporters.

   Haas said Bangladesh’s lending from China was relatively smaller in amount as Dhaka preferred more Asian Development Bank (ADB), The World Bank Group and the Japan for external financing.

   According to the envoy’s analysis Bangladesh was unlikely to face a situation which was now being witnessed in Sri Lanka also because the country currently had substantial foreign currency reserves.

   Diplomatic Correspondent Association of Bangladesh (DCAB) staged the interaction styled “DCAB Talk” as part of its flagship meetings with foreign envoys at Jatiya press club here.

   Haas, however, said Bangladesh economy was exposed to challenges due to inflation and food price hike due to Russia’s invasion in Ukraine.
  
   “But its fundamentally different sort of challenges that Sri Lanka has made,” he said.
      
   The US envoy visibly was substantiating some critics’ analyses attributing the near collapse of Sri Lankan economy to what they called China’s “dept-trap” policy, though many others had different outlooks as well. 

   The critics of the government in Bangladesh and opposition politicians were also feared Bangladesh would witness Sri Lanka’s fallout though independent financial analysts ruled out the speculation saying the realities of the two countries were different.
 
   Despite a subtle campaign of anti-China “debt trap diplomacy”, Beijing visibly continued to build a geopolitically strong position with huge profits by providing small loans to developing countries.

   China constantly overruled the allegation saying calling the “debt trap” a myth.