In addition to the dollar crisis, the country’s foreign exchange reserves are continuously decreasing due to declining export earnings and remittance flows. Among these, foreign exchange reserves fell to $19.45 billion as the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) paid $121 million for September and October import bills.
On Tuesday (November 7) Akur paid the debt. This information was obtained from Bangladesh Bank.
According to central bank data, two-month import bill-paying reserves of Bhutan, India, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka under Akur’s jurisdiction have declined. At present the gross reserve is 26.42 billion dollars. But there is a difference of 5.76 billion dollars with Bangladesh Bank’s calculation based on BPM-6 method as per IMF advice. Accordingly, the actual reserve is 20.66 billion. From here, after paying Akur’s bill, the country’s reserves have come down to 19.45 billion dollars.
According to IMF’s Balance of Payments and Investment Position Manual (BPM-6), which is widely used around the world, the reserve calculation includes various funds constituted by Bangladesh Bank as well as loan guarantees given for aircraft, loans given to Paraport Authority, deposits with Islamic Development Bank and investments in securities below certain grades. Not included in reserve. Bangladesh Bank has been showing these as reserves for a long time. Due to the exclusion of these accounts, there is a decrease of 5.76 billion dollars from the reserves.
IMF approves $4.7 billion loan proposal to Bangladesh with certain conditions. Bangladesh received 476.2 million 70 thousand dollars of the first installment of that loan last February. One of these conditions was that the actual reserve should be kept at $2,446 million in June, $2,530 in September and $2,680 in December. However, the company recently relaxed these conditions.
According to the data of Bangladesh Bank, the reserve has decreased to this level since last year. 10 years ago at the end of June 2013, foreign exchange reserves were only 15.32 billion dollars. Five years ago it was 33.68 billion dollars. As of September 1, 2020, foreign exchange reserves have increased to $39 billion. A new milestone of $40 billion was crossed on October 8 of that year.
After that, despite the corona epidemic, a record was set in the reserve on August 24, 2021. On that day, the reserve increased to 48.04 billion dollars or four thousand 804 million dollars. After that, the reserve has been decreasing continuously since last year due to the dollar crisis.
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