Bangladesh's foreign exchange reserves stood at $20.02 billion on January 24 as per the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) BPM6 method, according to Bangladesh Bank (BB).
The latest data, updated on Sunday, from the central bank also showed that the gross reserves were at $25.23 billion on the same day.
The reserves position was at $20.03 billion on January 18.
BB had paid around $ 1.3 billion in ACU bill on September 10, and reserves fell below $22 billion in line with the IMF’s BPM6 method.
The central bank started following such international standards to calculate the reserves as per a condition set by IMF against a $4.7 billion loan approved for Bangladesh last year to mitigate the forex crunch.
Since 2012, IMF member countries have been calculating reserves with the Balance of Payments (BoP) and Investment Position Manual (BPM6). But BB took over a decade to implement it.
Reserves calculated as per the BPM6 method are not the net or actual reserves of Bangladesh. Several short-term liabilities, including SDRs from IMF, are excluded in calculating net reserves. According to that, the country net reserves are now around $20 billion.
An analysis of the BoP data indicates that the government has been mostly unable to curb the steady loss of foreign exchange reserves.
