Forex reserve declines further to USD 21.71b

The foreign currency reserve has depleted further by USD 1.47 billion to USD 21.71 billion, following payment of import bills to the Asian Clearing Unit (ACU).

Earlier on 5 September, the central bank estimated the reserve at USD 23.18 billion as per the International Monetary Fund (IMF) prescribed method, while the latest calculation came on Thursday.

The Bangladesh Bank (BB) recently settled import bills for the July-August period.

However, the reserve is still USD 27.63 billion as per the previous calculation method.

According to Bangladesh Bank, an amount of USD 1.10 billion was paid to the ACU for the imports between May and June.

In May, the forex reserve plummeted below USD 30 billion as per the central bank’s conventional estimation.

The situation improved to some extent when various loan funds were injected into the reserves.

The ACU is an inter-regional payment gateway for central banks to settle import and export bills between nine Asian countries after every two months.

The ACU member countries include Bangladesh, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Bhutan, and the Maldives. Later, Sri Lanka was removed from the facility as it failed to settle its debt liabilities.