Forex reserve stands at $5.50b now

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FE Report
The country's foreign exchange reserve stood at nearly US$5.50 billion Sunday for the first time because of disbursement of soft loans by a multilateral donor agency and robust growth of remittances.
Besides, appreciation of five major currencies -Euro, Great Britain Pound, Japanese Yen, Canadian Dollar and Australian Dollar - against the US dollar was able to bring a positive impact on the country's reserve position.
The Bangladesh Bank (BB) took a precautionary measure by converting major portion of the foreign exchange reserve into the five foreign currencies. As a result, it had a positive impact on the reserve position, official sources said.
"We are now enjoying the gains of appreciation of the major currencies," a BB senior official told the FE Sunday, adding that the central bank had taken the step earlier so that instability in the US dollar exchange rate would not affect the country's reserve position,
The World Bank has recently released funds worth around $115 million as soft loan through the International Development Association (IDA) to help finance part of the fiscal 2007-08 resource gap created as a result of the floods and develop country’s health sector.
The foreign exchange reserve rose to $5.487 billion Sunday following increased flow of remittances, disbursement of soft loans and currencies' revaluation gain, official sources said.
The flow of inward remittances crossed two billion US dollar in the first four months of the current fiscal, marking a 28.36 per cent growth over the same period of the last fiscal.
The country received $2.19 billion during the July-October period of the current fiscal against $1.70 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal, according to the Bangladesh Bank (BB) statistics.
Sources, however, said the foreign exchange reserve is likely to come down to about $5.0 billion as the BB is expected to make the routine payment amounting to $462 million to the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) in a day or two.
The amount of the ACU payment rose to $462 million during the September-October period of this year from $390 million in the July-August period, the sources added.
Under the existing provision, settlement of the balance and accrued interests is made at the end of every two-month among the member countries of the ACU.
"The foreign exchange reserve may fall slightly after making regular payment to the ACU," the BB senior official added.
He also said the fund to be paid may be transferred to the ACU headquarters in Tehran today (Monday) or tomorrow (Tuesday).
The ACU is an arrangement among Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka to settle payments for intra-regional transactions through the participating central banks on a multilateral basis.