Bangladesh paid $121 million on Tuesday for the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) import bill for the months of September and October. In this, the actual reserve has decreased to 19.45 billion dollars. According to International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditions, real reserves were to be kept at $25 billion in September. And according to the IMF, the country’s net reserves are even lower. This information was obtained from Bangladesh Bank.
According to Bangladesh Bank data, Akur Awatadhin Bhutan, India, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have reduced their two-month import bill paying reserves. 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. In this regard, Bangladesh Bank Executive Director and Spokesperson. Majbaul Haque said that the urgent bill has been paid. However, the bill payment voucher has not yet arrived. This will be officially informed on Wednesday.
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 Payra Port 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.
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. Which was growing consistently before. 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. From there, foreign exchange reserves rose to $39 billion on September 1, 2020. A new milestone of $40 billion was crossed on October 8 of that year.
After that, it increased even in the midst of the corona epidemic, the accumulation or reserve of Bangladesh’s foreign currency set a record on August 24, 2021. On that day, the reserve increased to 48.04 billion dollars or four thousand 804 million dollars. After that, the reserves have been decreasing continuously since last year due to the dollar crisis.
