Business Desk :
The foreign exchange reserves have continued to grow and touched $45 billion from $40 billion in six months.
On 8 November, the foreign exchange reserve hit $40 and it stood at $45.105 billion on Monday, according to sources at the Bangladesh Bank.
Analysts believe that the increase in foreign exchange reserves is due to high growth in remittances, lack of private investment in the pandemic, reduction in import expenditure and drop in travel and medical expenses abroad.
From $40 billion in November, the reserve exceeded $44 billion on 24 February and reached $44.97 on Sunday.
As per international standards, a country has to have reserves equal to three months of import expenditure. With the amount of reserve that Bangladesh has now, it is possible to pay the import cost for more than eight months.
The high flow of remittances by expatriates is one of the reasons for increasing the reserves. In just two days, on 1-2 May, remittances worth $154 million was received. Remittance inflow in April was $2.06 billion, an 89% year-on-year up.
On the other hand, in July-April of the current financial year, there was a year-on-year increase of remittance by 39% to stand at $20.67 billion, which is about $2 billion more than the 2019-20 fiscal year.
