Dhaka, April 17 -- Finance Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury has said Bangladesh is grappling with a massive capital deficit of around $200 billion, underlining the creation of a short-term economic "cushion" to stabilise the banking system and the private sector.

Speaking in a featured interview aired during the Atlantic Council's coverage of the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings, Khosru laid out what he described as the scale of financial "looting" that has weakened the domestic economy.

"The stolen money that came out of Bangladesh is over $200 billion," Khosru asserted.

He identified this outflow as the central driver of the country's current liquidity crisis, arguing that the loss of such a vast volume of capital has eroded the f...