The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has lined loan giving to Bangladesh with the rise in prices of petroleum products, electricity and gas.

The comment was made by Thomas Rumbaugh, Advisor for Asia- Pacific Department of IMF while talking to newsmen in Dhaka on Thursday, who is visiting Bangladesh heading a delegation.

"No lean will be given to Bangladesh unless it raises prices of petroleum products and electricity and gas," Thomas said.

Bangladesh was far behind the world price level of petroleum products and the Bangladeshi government is incurring a huge loss from the petroleum products.

But Bangladeshi Finance Minister M Saifur Rahman giving his reaction to newsmen on the IMF official comments ruled out the possibility of increasing the prices of petroleum products at this moment before the national elections is approaching nearer.

He said, "If we increase the prices of oil at this moment, it will severely hurt the vote bank of our party," Saifur Rahman said.

Bangladeshi government this year raised the prices of petroleum products twice, but it was still far behind to match the prices of the products in the global market.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led four-party alliance government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia will end its five years tenure on Oct. 27 and hand over power to a non-partisan caretaker government on Oct. 28 to conduct the national polls in three months.

Source: Xinhua