Bangladesh’s foreign exchange reserves position has fallen again due to the ongoing US dollar crisis.
The reserves stood at $23.31 billion on Thursday in line with the accounting method (BPM6) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), according to the latest data from Bangladesh Bank (BB).
However, the country’s gross reserves were at $29.68 billion.
A week ago, on July 19, the reserves stood at $23.45 billion under the IMF’s BPM6 and the gross reserves were at $29.85 billion.
From the beginning of this month, BB started following international standards in calculating foreign exchange reserves following a condition from by IMF for a $4.7 billion loan approved for Bangladesh earlier this year.
Since 2012, IMF member countries have been calculating reserves with the Balance of Payments 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, Bangladesh's net reserves are now around $20 billion.
Besides, the country’s external debt position was at $95.71 billion as of March this year, and $15.77 billion of that is short-term external debt.
Short-term loans are generally repayable within a year. As such debt is close to net reserves, experts fear that the country's economy will come under more pressure and the taka will continue to fall against the USD.
The USD exchange rate is currently Tk 109, following a devaluation of around 25 per cent in the past year.
