Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) – Bangladesh is set to make payment of US$893 million to the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) by the end of this week against the last two months’ imports from its member countries, officials said.
The country’s foreign exchange reserve may come down to around $9.30 billion after making the ACU payment from Monday’s $10.02 billion.
“The central bank will remit the fund to the ACU headquarters in Tehran in line with the existing provision of the nine-member union by the end of this week,” a senior official of BB told BBN in Dhaka.
Under the existing provisions, outstanding import bills and interest accruing thereof are to be paid at the end of every two months.
The amount of import bills reached $893 million in January-February of this calendar as against $746 million paid for the previous two months mainly due to higher imports, particularly of capital machinery and textile, from ACU member countries, the central bankers said.
They also said Bangladesh is importing consumer items and raw materials from the ACU member countries, particularly from India to meet the growing demands of the domestic market.
“India is our main trading partner under the ACU arrangement,” another BB said, adding that Bangladesh has imported various items including capital machinery, textile and consumer goods from India.
The country’s foreign exchange reserve has been under pressure because of higher import payments, particularly for petroleum products.
The net petroleum products import cost has been estimated at around US$6.80 billion for the FY’12 as against $3.60 billion previous fiscal.
“The estimated cost for fuel oil may exceed by the end of the FY’12 because of rising trend in petroleum products in the global market,” the BB official said, adding that the government is trying to collect funds from overseas sources to ease the pressure on foreign exchange reserve.
The import of fuel oils increased by 67.72 per cent to $2.42 billion in the first six months of fiscal year (FY) 2011-12 from $1.44 billion during the same period of FY ’11, according to the central bank statistics.
The ACU is an arrangement among Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Burma, officially known as Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives through which intra-regional transactions among the participating central banks are settled on a multilateral basis.
The union started its operations in November 1975 to boost trade among the member countries. Bangladesh and Myanmar joined the union as the sixth and the seventh members in 1976 and 1977 respectively. Bhutan joined the ACU in December 1999 and the Maldives in January 2010.
BBN/SSR/SI-06Mar12-7:40 am (BST)
