The country’s net international reserves (NIR), the liquid foreign assets a central bank can readily use, have risen to $27.92 billion, according to the central bank.
The NIR has recovered from a low of $16.77 billion in July 2024, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) said today.
The reserves have strengthened over the past two years, supported by higher remittance inflows, a more stable exchange rate, loans and other support from multilateral lenders, and subdued import payments.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), NIR helps stabilise the local currency and meet international payment obligations.
Under the IMF’s Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (BPM6), NIR is calculated by subtracting reserve liabilities from reserve assets.
Usually, the BB reports foreign exchange reserves using two methods — the IMF’s BPM6 methodology and its own calculation.
Central bank officials said the banking regulator’s purchases of US dollars from the market over the past few months also helped increase the country’s foreign exchange reserves.
The BB bought more than $6 billion from the foreign exchange market during the last fiscal year.
However, it has now suspended the purchases as demand for the greenback has increased in recent weeks, driven by higher import payments and slower remittance growth last month.
Bangladesh received $2.80 billion in remittances in June, slightly down from $2.82 billion in the same month a year earlier, according to BB data.
Under the BPM6 methodology, foreign exchange reserves stood at $31.72 billion today, down from $33.19 billion a day earlier.
Using the BB’s own calculation, gross reserves stood at $36.17 billion, compared with $37.84 billion the previous day.
The reserves fell after Bangladesh paid $1.46 billion in import bills through the Asian Clearing Union (ACU).
The ACU is a regional payment arrangement under which central banks of the member countries settle net import payments every two months instead of making individual cross-border payments for each transaction.
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