Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)-Country made a routine payment of more than US$1.0 billion to the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) against imports during the March-April period of the current calendar year, officials said.
After the payment, Bangladesh’s foreign exchange (forex) reserve came down to $23.22 billion on Thursday from $ 24.14 billion of the previous working day, according to the central bank statistics.
“The central bank has already remitted the fund to the ACU headquarters in Tehran in line with the existing provisions of the union,” a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country’s central bank, told the BBN in Dhaka.
He also said the amount of payment stood at more than $1.0 billion in the last instalment that was almost equal of the earlier payment.
Under the existing provisions, outstanding import bills and interests thereof are to be paid at the end of every two months among the member countries.
“We’re importing different consumer items, cotton, raw materials and capital machinery from the ACU member countries, particularly from India,” the BB official explained.
The ACU is an arrangement involving Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, through which intraregional transactions among the participating central banks are settled on a multilateral basis.
The union started its operation in November 1975 to boost trade among the member countries. Bangladesh and Myanmar joined the union as the sixth and seventh members in 1976 and 1977 respectively. Bhutan joined the ACU in December 1999 and the Maldives in January 2010.