Foreign exchange reserves cross $20b mark

Bangladesh sees its foreign-currency reserves overshoot US$20-billion mark in meticulously set IMF arithmetic, after over a month of downturn, feeding on growing inflow of US dollars.
Such rise in the gross stock of foreign-exchange reserves gives some sort of relief to the central bankers, who had been in anxiety amid volatility on local and external financial fronts.
According to the data with the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country's central bank, the forex reserves now came to $20.17 billion measured by IMF-prescribed BPM6 model on December 23, 2024. However, the figure is far higher at $24.98 billion as per BB calculations.
On December 11, 2024, the gross reserve size was $24.75 billion while the stock following the BPM6 was $19.20 billion, the data showed.

Earlier, the IMF-prescribed gross reserves reached $20 billion on November 6, before a climb-down.

Maintaining minimum $15.3 billion worth of net international-standard reserves (NIR) up to December is one of the conditions set by the Washington-based global lender in its $4.7-billion lending package to Bangladesh, among other financial-economic-sector reforms.
Spokesperson for the central bank Husne Ara Shikha confirmed the improvement in the reserves position, saying that "rising inflow of foreign currencies helps boost the reserves".
Seeking anonymity, a BB official says the reserves basically start improving riding on growing inflow of remittance, export receipts and funds coming from multilateral lending agencies.
"It's a good sign that the reserves keep improving slightly but we need to keep the momentum going in the coming days," the central banker adds.
In the first 21 days of this month, the country received remittances equivalent to over $2.0 billion--much higher than the receipt in the entire December ($1.99 billion) in 2023.
In the five months from July to November this year, the total value of LCs opened for import trade also declined slightly, by less than 1.0 per cent, amounting to $27.97 billion.
In terms of LC settlement, import payments dropped by over 1.0 per cent or $27.88 billion during the period, according to data from the central bank.
On the other side of the trade balance, the country's merchandised exports grew by around 12 per cent in the first five months (July-November) of this fiscal (FY'25) to reach $19.90 billion from $17.81 billion the country achieved during the same period of time last fiscal (FY'24).
On the other hand, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) released $600 million as budget-support fund last week, and it added into the reserves directly.
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