Forex reserve hits all-time high
FE Report | Tuesday, 1 July 2008
The country's foreign exchange reserve rose to $6.16 billion Monday, the last working day of the 2007-08 fiscal, which is the highest ever in the history of Bangladesh.
"The foreign exchange reserve reached the ever-highest level mainly due to significant inflow of remittances and disbursement of soft loans by multilateral donor agencies," a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) told the FE Monday.
He also said the reserve may decline slightly in the first week of the next month after routine payments to the Asian Clearing Union (ACU).
Under the existing ACU provision, settlement of any balance along with the accrued interest is made among its member countries at the end of every two months.
The Tehran-based ACU members are: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
The reserve went up as the World Bank (WB) recently released $315 million and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) $32 million as soft loans.
Besides, the country received around $50 million recently from the United Nations (UN) for participating in the peacekeeping missions, he added.
Both the funds and inflow of remittances have pushed up the foreign exchange reserve to the present level that will be able to meet payment of import bills of over three months, he confirmed.
The country received $7.163 billion in remittance during the period of July-May of the fiscal 2007-08, which was 31.14 per cent more than that of the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, according to the central bank statistics.
"The foreign exchange reserve reached the ever-highest level mainly due to significant inflow of remittances and disbursement of soft loans by multilateral donor agencies," a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) told the FE Monday.
He also said the reserve may decline slightly in the first week of the next month after routine payments to the Asian Clearing Union (ACU).
Under the existing ACU provision, settlement of any balance along with the accrued interest is made among its member countries at the end of every two months.
The Tehran-based ACU members are: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
The reserve went up as the World Bank (WB) recently released $315 million and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) $32 million as soft loans.
Besides, the country received around $50 million recently from the United Nations (UN) for participating in the peacekeeping missions, he added.
Both the funds and inflow of remittances have pushed up the foreign exchange reserve to the present level that will be able to meet payment of import bills of over three months, he confirmed.
The country received $7.163 billion in remittance during the period of July-May of the fiscal 2007-08, which was 31.14 per cent more than that of the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, according to the central bank statistics.