Reserves in danger zone

Stood at $21.48 b

Staff Correspondent: The country’s reserves have further decreased. According to IMF’s BPM-6 manual, foreign exchange reserves in the country are now $21.48 billion. However, according to gross or Bangladesh Bank, the amount of reserves stands at $27.61 billion.
Bangladesh Bank has paid $1.30 billion for July-August import bills of Asian Clearing Union (ACU) countries as per the rules. Due to the payment of import bills in the 10 member countries of ACU, the reserves have come down to $21 billion. On Sunday (September 10), this information was revealed by Bangladesh Bank sources.
Aku is a means of settlement of transactions in Asian countries. The member countries of this organization are India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan. Sri Lanka withdrew due to poor conditions in the country. Member countries pay the import bill every 2 months.
It is known that the Aku bill was $1.12 billion in January this year, $1.05 billion in March, $1.18 billion in May and $1.10 billion was paid in July.
To learn about this, the executive director and spokesperson of Bangladesh Bank told the media that the import liability of $1.30 billion has been paid from the reserve for the period of July-August. In this, the amount of gross reserves stood at $27.61 billion. However, he did not comment on the BPM-6 manual.
$4.10 billion provided to Export Development Fund (EDF) from reserves and $200 million (repayment of $15 million) to Sri Lanka, $200 million from Green Transformation Fund (GTF), $3.85 crorefrom Long Term Financing Facility (LTFF) fund. Lakhs, $480 million to Bangladesh Biman through Sonali Bank and deposits of International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC) were being shown in reserves.
As per IMF’s BPM-6 they are not part of reserves. All together, $6.13 billion should be deducted from the gross reserve account of Bangladesh Bank.