Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- The central bank of Bangladesh has sent documents related to capital machinery imports under textile, garment and energy and power sectors to the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) for investigation.
“We’ve sent the documents to the ACC after recording a ‘hefty’ growth of the capital machinery imports in the first half of the outgoing fiscal year (FY) 2013-14 despite political uncertainty,” a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country’s central bank, told BBN in Dhaka.
“Actually, we want to see whether there is any attempt to siphon off money abroad through over-invoicing under capital-machinery imports,” the central banker explained.
He also said the central bank earlier collected such documents from five commercial banks.
The opening of letters of credit (LC) for the import of capital machinery, generally known as import orders, jumped by more than 67 per cent in the H1 of FY 14 compared with the previous corresponding time.
On the other hand, settlement of LCs--generally known as actual import--for the capital machinery increased 16.60 per cent during the period under review against the same period of the last fiscal.
The import orders for capital machinery rose to US$1.83 billion in the first six months of the FY 14 from $1.09 billion in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal while actual import of capital machinery reached at $1.14 billion from $981.30 million, the BB data showed.
BBN/SSR/AD-23June14-1:35pm (BST)