During the visit the finance minister will meet the WB president, the IMF managing director and other high officials and explain the difficulties of the government to carry out reforms in its final year in office, sources said.

The IMF recently deferred the $80 million sixth tranche of the Poverty Reduction Growth Facility (PRGF) loan scheduled to be released in July as Bangladesh failed to fulfil its conditions regarding reforms in energy, revenue and banking sectors.

Besides, the release of $200 million in the fourth tranche of the World Bank's budget support loans has also been delayed due to slow progress in reforms.

"The finance minister will try to persuade the donors in releasing the funds with a pledge to complete the unfinished reforms after taking office for another term through the next election," a high official of the finance ministry said.

He said government borrowing from banking sector will increase further if the World Bank and IMF loans were not released immediately.

In the first five days of the current fiscal, the government borrowed Tk 1,608 crore from the banking sector to meet the expenditure.

The IMF's $80 million loan has become uncertain as the government failed to notify the IMF of the measures to tackle the huge loss due to subsidy in fuel prices and the ways to achieve revenue growth in the current fiscal.

The donors are unhappy about the slow pace of government's reforms in the National Board of Revenue and nationalised commercial banks, sources said.

Rupali Bank was scheduled to be handed over to private sector one and a half years ago, but the government has failed to achieve progress in this regard.

The donors are in doubt whether it will be completed by the first week of September as per the new deadline set by the government.

The World Bank halted discussion with the Bangladesh government on releasing $200 million development support credit (DSC) since the IMF deferred its PRGF loan, release of which was a condition for the disbursement of DSC.

During the 10-day visit, Saifur Rahman will stay in Washington from August 6 to 8 and attend pre-negotiation meeting with World Bank and IMF.

Meanwhile, World Bank Country Director Christine I Wallich yesterday met Saifur Rahman at the latter's office on the eve of his visit to Washington.

Saifur told reporters after the meeting that during his meetings in Washington he would raise the issues of macroeconomic challenges for Bangladesh in the wake of the soaring price of oil in the international market.