Dhaka, Jan. 10 -- Corporate external borrowing drops as persisting economic sluggishness dampens businesses' appetite for funds with the short-term overseas debt stock having declined to $9.80 billion until November.

Officials and money-market analysts see such unrelenting contraction in private-sector foreign debts not as a good sign for the private sector-led economy while interest rates on the global market stabilising and import compression on the domestic market easing.

Apart from prevailing energy crisis facing the industrial hubs, coupled with depreciation of the local currency against the American greenback, the economic doldrums following the mass uprising that led to the fall of the Sheikh Hasina regime in early August 2024 pr...