Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) – Bangladesh’s overall imports payment hit a record high of nearly US$32 billion in the just concluded fiscal that ended on June 30, due to higher import of food grains, officials said.
Letters of credit (LCs) against imports worth US$ 31.867 billion were settled during the July-June period of fiscal 2010-11 (FY11), compared to $22.969 billion during the corresponding period of the last fiscal, according to the central bank statistics.
“The overall imports increased substantially in FY11 mainly because of higher level of import of food grains,” a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) said.
He also said import of other essential items including petroleum products, industrial raw materials and capital machinery also increased significantly during the period under review to meet the domestic demand.
The imports grew by nearly 39 per cent in fiscal FY11 from that of 7.11 per cent in the previous fiscal, the BB’s provisional data showed.
“The sector-wise detailed import statistics will be available by the end of this month,” another BB official said, adding that the food grains import has started a declining trend recently due mainly to the seasonal effect.
“The upward trend of overall import may continue this fiscal because of rising trend of fuel oil import along with capital machinery,” the central bank official said.
Import of petroleum products may increase further in the coming months to meet the growing demand for oil-based power plants, the BB officials said.
Currently, around one dozen of oil-based power plants are operating across the country.
Besides, installation of more than a dozen of such power plants is under process to resolve power crisis by the end of 2012, power and energy ministry officials said.
“The import of capital machinery will also increase in FY12 to set up more power plants in the near future,” the central bank official added.
BBN/SSR/AD-08Juky11-4:47 pm (BST)
