Forex reserve rises past $31b

The country's foreign exchange reserves rose past $31 billion yesterday after three multilateral lenders provided $925 million to Bangladesh. 

In addition, a higher year-on-year inflow of remittances ahead of Eid-ul-Azha also played a role in pushing the reserves up.

The reserves stood at $31.15 billion yesterday in contrast to $30.84 billion on Sunday, said a Bangladesh Bank official.

There was $41.82 billion in the reserves at the end of June last year.

The multilateral lending agencies -- Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank -- provided the funds in the form of credit to Bangladesh.

The reserves had surpassed the $30-billion mark on June 21.

Loans from three multilateral lenders and a higher inflow of remittances ahead of Eid pushed the reserves up.

The BB has so far injected nearly $13.5 billion into the banking sector this fiscal year, which eroded the reserves to a large extent.

The BB official said expatriate Bangladeshis were now robust in sending remittances ahead of Eid-ul-Azha.

Expatriate Bangladeshis sent remittances amounting to $2.02 billion in the first 25 days of this month whereas it was $1.28 billion in the first 23 days of June last year.

Between July 1 and June 25 this fiscal year, the inflow of remittance stood at $21.43 billion. The figure was $20.48 billion between July 1 and June 23 last fiscal year.

Remittances usually increase centring Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha -- the two biggest religious festivals for Muslims -- as expatriates send their hard-earned money to their near and dear ones to celebrate the occasions.

The BB officials said some banks were enjoying a surplus of the greenback at the moment, which was why they were selling dollars to the central bank.

Besides, the central bank is also getting a good amount of dollars from foreign sources, so the reserves yesterday crossed $31 billion.

Lenders are also trading dollars with each other on the inter-bank platform. Some banks yesterday sold $122 million to others.

Each US dollar traded in the range of Tk 108 to Tk 108.84 on the inter-bank platform.

The reserves declined to $29.77 billion on May 7 when the central bank cleared import bills to the tune of $1.18 billion with Asian Clearing Union (ACU).

The ACU is an arrangement to settle payments for intra-regional transactions among member countries, including Bangladesh.

India, Bhutan, Iran, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka are other members of the Tehran-headquartered ACU.

The member countries of the ACU clear their payments once every two months.

Two days later, however, the reserve increased to $30.36 billion after loans provided by the World Bank reached the reserves.

The multilateral lender released $507 million to the government, giving a little bit of breathing space to the economy from the ongoing stress in the different zones of the macroeconomy.

But the reserves slipped below the $30-billion mark again on May 25.