Bangladesh Bank (BB) on Wednesday paid around $1.17 billion of the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) bill, putting the foreign exchange reserves — adjusted in line with the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) BPM6 method — below $20 billion.
A senior BB official, requesting anonymity, told The Business Post that the reserves were at $19.50 billion, as per BPM6 method, after the ACU payment.
However, the gross reserves were at $25.21 billion, according to the central bank data.
On Wednesday evening, BB spokesperson Mezbaul Haque also told The Business Post that the central bank paid $1.17 billion as ACU payment on Wednesday and the gross reserves were at $25.10 billion.
“But I don’t know the calculation of the BPM6 method at the moment,” he added.
Earlier, the reserves stood at $20.66 billion on November 1 as per the BPM6 method, while the gross reserves were at $ 26.42 billion at the same time.
The ACU is an arrangement to settle payments for intra-regional transactions among its member countries, including Bangladesh.
The country’s gross forex reserves were at $29.20 billion and as per the BPM6 method, the amount was $23.06 billion on August 30, according to BB data.
A senior BB official, asking not to be named, said, “The central bank is continuing to sell US dollars to banks facilitating import bills and it is impacting the forex reserves despite the initiatives to halt its steady decline.”
Banks, especially the state-run ones, are taking USD support to settle import payments of government entities, such as the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation, Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation, and Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation.
Due to the dollar crisis, the central bank sold around $14 billion to commercial banks for facilitating LC openings in FY2022-23. After that, the central bank took many steps to bring the dollar market under control.
BB also sold $4.53 billion from forex reserves to commercial banks between July 1 and November 2 of FY2023-24 to facilitate fuel imports.
In terms of export earnings, the USD rate has been increased by Tk 110.50 monthly. Besides, the price of the USD stood for imports at Tk 111.
The USD rate was at Tk 84.80 on July 26 last year. Since then, Bangladesh has been witnessing the dollar crisis and taka has depreciated continuously against the greenback.
