Dhaka, April 17 -- Finance Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury has put the recovery of an estimated $200 billion in stolen assets at the centre of efforts to stabilise the economy, warning that years of capital flight have hollowed out the banking system and left the private sector starved of liquidity.

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 v...