Bangladesh central bank buys $45mn more to boost reserves

Foreign exchange reserves usually shrink after every ACU payment

The central bank has purchased $45 million from a single bank at a rate of Tk122.75 per dollar to beef up foreign exchange reserves after paying the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) liabilities.

The foreign exchange reserves under the IMF’s BPM6 manual stood at $29.56 billion on Monday after buying new dollars, said Arief Hossain Khan, executive director and spokesperson for the Bangladesh Bank.

According to him, the gross amount is now $34.22 billion.

The Bangladesh Bank has purchased $125 million from the market this month and a total of $5.79 billion so far in the current fiscal year.

After clearing $1.51 billion in the ACU payment for March and April on May 7, the reserves decreased to $29.47 billion.

After buying the dollar at Tk 122.30 on Mar 2, Bangladesh Bank increased the price by 45 paisa on Apr 15.

The ACU is a regional arrangement through which member countries settle payments for intra-regional transactions on a multilateral basis.

The member nations include Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan.

The clearing union settles its accounts every two months. Sri Lanka, once a member, withdrew from the union in October 2022 amidst its severe economic crisis.