Dhaka/

Amid the dollar crisis, Bangladesh Bank’s foreign exchange reserves have dropped to below 30 billion or 3 billion dollars. At the beginning of the day, the reserve was 2 thousand 993 million dollars. Then 5 crore 9 million dollars were sold to the banks. As a result, the end-of-day reserves further decreased.

Earlier this month, the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) reserves fell below 30 billion after paying $1.18 billion for March-April import bills. Then it increased slightly due to the loan money of the World Bank. This information was obtained from Bangladesh Bank sources.

Bangladesh Bank’s official statement on the latest reserves of foreign currency is not available. However, an official on condition of anonymity said that there is still a shortage of dollars in the market. As much as the demand for dollars is, the supply is less than that. So trying to provide by selling dollars every day. There is no other option for now.

When the Covid pandemic started in 2020, the foreign exchange reserves increased rapidly. Due to the suspension of air traffic, at that time, all expatriate income came to the country through legal channels, i.e. banking channels. Imports also decrease. As a result, reserves increased to exceed $4,800 crore for the first time in August 2021.

When the Russia-Ukraine war started in February last year, the prices of food products including fuel increased in the global market. As a result, the import cost of the country also increases. However, the expatriate and export income did not increase compared to that. Due to this, Bangladesh Bank has to sell dollars from reserves to meet import liabilities. Since then, the country’s reserves continue to decrease.

Analysts in the banking sector believe that the measures taken by the central bank to reduce the dollar crisis have not worked, but the crisis has deepened. However, in order to handle the situation, Bangladesh Bank is moving towards setting a single price in addition to leaving the price of the dollar to the market.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had set a target of net reserves of at least 22.95 billion dollars for Bangladesh in March. But that goal was not met. The company has conditions to increase the amount of reserves to 24.46 billion dollars next June.

In addition, the IMF has set a target of increasing the amount of net reserves to 25.32 billion dollars in September and 26.41 billion dollars in December.