The country’s foreign exchange reserve fell to US$37.27 billion from $38.94 billion on Thursday after making a payment worth $1.73 billion to the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) for the month of July and August 2022, official sources said.
Bangladesh made the last ACU payment worth $1.96 billion on July 12 for the period of May-June.
The current reserve is equivalent to around five months’ import bills.
The Asian Clearing Union is a payment settlement forum where the participating countries settle payments for intra-regional transactions through their respective central banks.
Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are the members of the Tehran-based ACU. The central banks of the countries have to make the payments every two months.
The Bangladesh Bank (BB) formed a $7-billion export development fund for exporters. The amount is still considered as reserves, which was questioned by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently. If the export development fund (EDF) is excluded from this amount, the country’s forex reserve will stand at $30.18 billion.
Ahsan H Mansur, Executive Director of the Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh, told The News Times that Bangladesh’s foreign exchange reserve is now falling constantly. “We fear that the reserve will decrease further,” he said, referring to the current global situation following the Russia-Ukraine war.
He said the central bank has to stop selling dollars in the interbank market to retain the reserve.
The BB started buying dollars from the market several months ago after the forex market was under pressure due to increased import costs following the Ukraine war. The exchange rate of greenback rose to as high as Tk 120 per USD in the kerb market during the time.
In the fiscal year 2021-2022, the BB sold $7.62 billion to the banks from its reserve to stabilize the market.
