Finance
Forex Reserves Forex Reserves fall below $40 billion after two years
Own Correspondent, Dhaka, July 13: Bangladesh Bank's foreign exchange reserves have fallen below 40 billion dollars in almost two years.
At present, the reserves stand at 39.80 billion dollars. In December last year, the reserves were 46.15 billion dollars. Last week, Bangladesh settled 1.99 billion dollars worth of import payments with the Asian Clearing Union (ACU). Reserves have been reduced after the payment of import was approved.
The Asian Clearing Union is a system through which participating countries settle import payments for regional transactions. Members of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Under this system, the central banks of the countries have to pay the import fee every two months.
Economists believe that the increase in export earnings has led to an unusual increase in import expenditure and a decrease in remittances, which has put pressure on the dollar. They also said that the central bank's dollar reserves have been under pressure for the past few months.
Between July and May of the last fiscal year, import expenditure increased by 39 percent to 75.40 billion dollars. Compared to that, the export income has increased by 33 percent to 44.58 billion dollars. On the other hand, remittance flow has declined for the first time in the last six years. In the last financial year, remittances sent by expatriates to unofficial channels amounted to 21.3 billion dollars.
It is learned that at the beginning of last year, due to the pandemic, the expatriates sent their savings to the country out of some kind of uncertainty. Many have lost their jobs or stopped trading and brought all the money back to the country. In addition, the hundi trend declined due to the stagnation of the corona at the beginning of last year. As a result, the amount of money sent to the banking channel increases.
Due to these reasons, the flow of remittances increased even during the pandemic. Now many are trapped in the country. Again, many expatriates have reduced sending remittances to the country to start a new business. The hundi is also rising again. As a result, expatriate income is declining.
