Forex reserves drop below $40 billion

Within a week, the foreign exchange reserves dropped by $1.04 billion to $39.96 billion on Thursday, which exceeded $41 billion on 29 October.

Regarding the drop in the forex reserves, Md Sirajul Islam, spokesman of the Bangladesh Bank, said Bangladesh had to pay $13 million to the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) to cover import costs.

However, he said reserves would reach $40 billion again next week.

On 8 October, foreign exchange reserves exceeded $40 billion for the first time.

The money exchanged between nine Asian countries to import and export goods is called ACU payment. The ACU is an inter-regional current transaction settlement system through the central bank on a multilateral basis.

Meanwhile, after a virtual meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Public Procurement on Wednesday, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal hoped the reserves would reach $50 billion by December 2021.

The reserves were increasing following a rise in remittance inflow and the surplus of the current balance due to lower import costs. During July-September this year, the current account balance exceeded $3.5 billion.

On the other hand, remittances during July-October were 43.24% higher than in the same period last year. Remittances rose 28% to $2.1 billion in October from a year earlier.