Letters Of Credit For Imports Go Up By Over 13 Percent In Bangladesh

Dhaka, Bangladesh (AHN) - Opening of letters of credit (LCs) for imports increased by 13.29 percent during the first 24 days of July compared to that of the corresponding period of the previous year.

Import LCs worth $1.581 billion were opened during the period against LCs worth $1.396 billion of the corresponding period of last year, according to the central bank statistics.

"The overall trend of opening LCs for imports, particularly food grains, will continue till September, 2008 due to the month of Ramadan," a senior official of Bangladesh Bank, the country's central bank, told AHN in Dhaka on Sunday.

He also said a large quantity of essential commodities, particularly wheat, pulses (10-12 classes of annual leguminous grain or seed crops within a pod harvested dry), onions, milk foods and edible oils, will be imported normally to meet the growing demand from the consumers during the month of Ramadan, a holy month for the Muslims around the world,

LCs, opened for import of some essential items including sugar and onions, rose during the period while those on rice, wheat, milk foods, edible oils and pulses marked a fall, according to officials.

Pulses include:

• Dry beans (Phaseolus spp. including several species now in Vigna)
• Dry broad beans (Vicia faba)
• Dry peas (Pisum spp.)
• Chickpea, Garbanzo, Bengal gram (Cicer arietinum)
• Dry cowpea, Black-eyed pea, blackeye bean (Vigna unguiculata )
• Pigeon pea, Toor, cajan pea, congo bean (Cajanus cajan)
• Lentil (Lens culinaris)
• Bambara groundnut, earth pea (Vigna subterranea)
• Vetch, common vetch (Vicia sativa)
• Lupins (Lupinus spp.)