Major donors include the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the UN Development Program, the United States, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and a number of West European countries.
Food aid provides food, promotes production, and helps stabilize prices.
Other US programs target family planning and health, agricultural development, and rural unemployment. This was financed largely through foreign assistance. The balance of payments swung into surplus in 1990-91 because of increased exports of garments and depressed domestic demand for imports. In recent years, remittances from workers in the Middle East have been Bangladesh's most important source of foreign exchange earnings. The US trade balance with Bangladesh has been negative since 1986, due largely to imports of ready-made garments.