Reserves stood at $19.46 billion after paying $1.37 billion ACU’s bills

Staff Correspondent: Bangladesh Bank (BB) has paid USD $1.37 billion in import liabilities of member countries of the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) for the last two months of July and August.

After paying the ACU’s liabilities, the central bank’s foreign exchange reserves stood at $19.46 billion on Tuesday as per the BPM6 formula accepted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The BB reported in early September before paying ACU’s bill that the gross reserve was $25.56 billion. According to BPM6, the reserves are $20.54 billion. But after paying the bill for two months (July to August), the reserve as BPM6 stands at $19.46 billion, while the gross reserves are $24.53 billion.

Bangladesh paid $1.42 billion for the import bills of ACU member countries in the previous two months (May to June). Earlier, $1.60 billion was paid for the two months of March to April.

ACU is an international transaction settlement system. Through this, transactions between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka are settled. In this system, the central bank of the respective countries pays the import liabilities every two months.