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.