Forex reserves below $20 billion after paying ACU

Bangladesh’s foreign exchange reserves have decreased by USD $1.21 billion to $19.45 billion, after paying import liabilities to the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) for September and October.

According to the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the gross reserve is $26.42 billion. But there is a difference of $5.76 billion, with BB‍‍`s calculation based on the BPM-6 method as per International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditions.

That is, according to the BPM-6 manual, the gross reserve was 20.66 billion. After paying ACU‍‍`s bills, the country‍‍`s reserves decreased to $19.45 billion on Tuesday (November 7).

Md Mezbaul Haque, executive director and spokesperson of BB, in this regard, told UNB that the payment of ACU has been cleared today. But the payment receipt will be tomorrow (Wednesday).

ACU is an international transaction settlement system. Through this, transactions between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka are settled.

ACU is headquartered in Tehran, the capital of Iran. In this system, the central banks of the respective countries pay the import amount dueevery two months. But now Sri Lanka does not have the membership of ACU. Due to the economic crisis, the country‍‍`s membership has been temporarily suspended.

Though the financial condition of Sri Lanka is stable and the foreign exchange reserve is around $3.5 billion, the membership has not been restored yet.