Bangladesh has targeted raising between 500 million dollars to 1 billion dollars through the debut of its foreign-currency sovereign bond sale within the next three months, Bloomberg reports.

The sales will be managed by New-York based JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Tanvir Shahriar Ghani, special assistant to the prime minister for investment and capital market affairs, made the disclosure during an interview with Bloomberg on Saturday.

The bond sale plan, spurred by higher global borrowing costs following recent rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve, needs final approval from Prime Minister Tarique Rahman.

“The interest rates have gone up by 25 basis points, which will have an impact on emerging market rates. We are just going to be cautious about what the pricing is, and based on that we will proceed,” Ghani said, adding the government was “sensitive to the cost of capital”.

“The interest level is extremely high for sovereign bonds,” Ghani said, adding that the government’s subsequent engagements in New York were also strictly focused on institutional investors.

He, however, did not share any specifics regarding the transaction.

Ahead of his election victory, Tarique Rahman had highlighted the state of the economy as one of the challenges for any government which came into power. 

"The economy has been destroyed," he had said to the AFP in an interview, accusing the ousted government of neglecting ordinary citizens. 

Speaking at an event in May, then BNP Secretary General and current President of Bangladesh Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir credited PM Tarique with rebuilding economic and institutional stability. 

“The banks and the economy had been destroyed. He has rebuilt them,” he said. 

The Bangladesh Bank first floated the idea of issuing debt to foreign investors in 2012.