SYDNEY: With Brent crude above US$100 a barrel for most of the past month and diesel prices more than twice as high, you might imagine that the world’s poorest fossil fuel importers would be hitting crisis conditions right now.
That they’re not quite there is down to one of the fastest-growing trends in development finance - helping oil and gas users pay for fuel they can’t afford.
Take the US$3.3 billion emergency energy package agreed by Bangladesh’s government last week. Some US$200 million from the Asian Development Bank will go toward a five-year programme repairing the crumbling electricity grid on the fast-urbanising fringes of the capital Dhaka, where power cuts lasting 12 hours or more have provoked protests and blockades. The lion’s share of the money, though - some US$3.1 billion - will pay for oil and gas imports in just the current fiscal year.
That money, in turn, depends heavily on the cash and expertise of one of the world’s fastest-growing multilateral banks, the International Islamic Trade Finance Corp, or ITFC.