The country's foreign exchange reserve again fell below US$ 10 billion Thursday after making a routine payment to the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) against the two months' imports from the member countries of the latter, officials said.
Bangladesh made a routine payment of US$ 824 million to the ACU against imports during the September-October period of this calendar year.
The payment pushed the foreign exchange reserve down to $ 9.56 billion Thursday from $ 10.29 billion of the previous working day, a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) said.
The country's foreign exchange reserve has been under pressure because of higher import payments, particularly for fuel oils, food grains, fertilisers and power plant equipment.
"The pressure on foreign exchange reserve may deepen in the near future unless we receive funds from overseas sources," a BB official told the FE without elaborating.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has also predicted further fall in the foreign currency reserve mainly due to the lack of stronger policy adjustment and timely structural reforms.
The BB official also said the central bank has already remitted the fund to the ACU headquarters in Tehran in line with the existing provision of the nine-member union.
Under the existing provisions, outstanding import bills and interest accrued thereof are settled at the end of every two months among the member countries.
He also said Bangladesh is importing different consumer items and raw materials from the ACU member countries, particularly from India.
The amount of payment increased to $824 million from the preceding instalment of $692 million mainly due to higher imports, particularly of consumer goods, from other ACU member countries.
The central bank continues providing foreign currency support to the commercial banks to settle import payment bills for the essential items which has been exerting pressure on the forex reserve, the central banker added.
As part of the operation, the BB sold US$ 10 million to a state-owned commercial bank Thursday to meet its growing demand for the greenback.
"Such operation will continue in line with the market requirement," the central banker noted.
The central bank has so far injected $ 256 million directly to the commercial banks to meet the increasing demand for the greenback in the current fiscal year, BB data showed.
The country's overall import payments grew by 23 per cent in the first quarter (Q1) of the current fiscal year (FY), in view of more than 100 per cent increase in oil import bill.
Letters of credit (LCs) against imports worth US$ 8.53 billion were settled during July-September period of FY '12 compared with those valued at $ 6.92 billion of the corresponding period of the last fiscal, according to the central bank statistics.
Source: thefinancialexpress-bd.com
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