The game of light and darkness is going on around the reserve. This increases and decreases again. The cause for concern is that sometimes this level of reserves falls to alarming levels. To improve the situation, Bangladesh Bank had to look like a chatak bird towards the remittances sent by expatriates and the income of exporters. As its pace increases, fears around the reserve also ease. But like luck it is not stable and risk free. Because, the reserve is again falling to the point of discomfort in paying the money spent on foreign transactions completed by the government and private sector. For three years, the reserve situation has been in a cycle of instability.
According to the data of Bangladesh Bank, the reserves in the country stood at 25 billion dollars till yesterday. If the Aku bill of the last two months of 1.5 billion dollars is removed from there, the total reserve will come down to 23 and a half billion. But last July the reserve was 26 billion dollars. A total of 1.5 billion dollars is to be paid this week for the import bill of the 9 countries involved for the September-October period of this year; If the total reserve is paid from 25.2 billion, it will stand at 23.7 billion.
On the other hand, according to the BPM-6 criteria prescribed by the International Monetary Fund yesterday, there are reserves of 19.8 billion dollars. If we subtract about 6.2 billion dollars from that, the expendable reserve will be 13.6 billion dollars; Which is lower than the limit set by the IMF of 15.32 billion dollars.
Thus the reserve is turning into a crisis almost every month; Behind which there is an adequate shortage of dollars. To improve the situation, the Central Bank has taken additional measures to impose strict conditions on imports, withdraw FCA interest rates, facilitate foreign investment, reduce EDF funding and raise dollars through offshore banking.
Besides, conditions for sending remittances have been relaxed and incentives have been increased in several steps to get extra dollars. Apart from this, the dollar saving program continues under the cover of over and under invoicing through the monitoring of international market product prices. It has also reduced the cost of import. But these steps are not bringing relief to the reserve.
Although the spokesperson and executive director of Bangladesh Bank Husne Ara Shikha told Ajker newspaper, the reserve is at its ideal level; With which there is no problem to meet import expenses. That is, even though the reserve is relatively low, it is not putting it at any risk.
