Bangladesh's Forex Reserve Crosses $7.0 Billion

June 15, 2009 11:44 a.m. EST

Dhaka, Bangladesh (AHN) - Bangladesh's foreign exchange reserve on Monday crossed US$7.0 billion mark for the first time, thanks to a robust growth of inward remittances as well as deceasing import payments.

The country's foreign exchange reserve reached $7.011 billion Monday from $6.944 billion of the previous day, setting a new record in the history of Bangladesh, officials said in Dhaka. "Steady growth of inward remittances and deceasing import payments have contributed to the crossing of forex reserves $7.0 billion-mark," Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country's central bank, Executive Director Chowdhury Mahidul Haque told AHN in the capital, Dhaka.

The foreign exchange reserve may decline slightly in the first week of July this year after a routine payment to the Asian Clearing Union (ACU), another BB official told AHN in Dhaka, preferring anonymity.

Under the existing ACU provision, settlement of any balance and the accrued interests is made among its member countries at the end of every two months.

The ACU is an arrangement among Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka to settle payments for intra-regional transactions through the participating central banks on a multilateral basis.

The country's overall import fell by nearly three per cent in May over that of the previous month, as importers slowed down opening LCs, the BB officials said.

The overall import came down to $1.529 billon in May from $1.569 billion in April 2009, according to the central bank provisional statistics.

Import LCs worth $1.902 billion and $1.696 billion were opened in March and April respectively. But import LCs worth $1.525 billion were executed in May, the BB's data showed.

On the other hand, Bangladeshi expatriates sent home a record $8.764 billion in the first 11 months of the current fiscal, marking a 22.39 per cent growth over the same period of the last fiscal.

Bangladesh received $8.764 billion during the July-May period of the fiscal 2008-09 against $7.161 billion of the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, the BB officials confirmed.