Kamruzzaman Bablu :
Despite a severe crisis of the country’s fund, the Bangladesh Bank has been continuing the massive sales of dollars from foreign exchange reserves. The central bank is doing this in the name of keeping the normal supply of commodities through the bank is not getting any success in taking steps to resolve this crisis.
Earlier, the Bangladesh Bank’s Governor Abdur Rauf Talukder declared to stop the dollar sale during the monetary policy announcement for the current financial year 2023-24. But already $9 billion dollars has been sold from the reserve fund in the Fiscal Year-2023-2024, shows data.
According to the central bank data released on Wednesday, the gross reserves stood at $25.13 billion and according to the BPM-6 manual it is now $19.99 billion. But the disposable net reserve is $15.87 billion.
Seeking anonymity, an Executive Director of Bangladesh Bank said that though the remittance flow was a positive trend in last month, it is not expected or quite enough.
According to the Bangladesh Bank, the total remittances were worth $2.1 billion or $2.1 billion sent by the expatriates in the first month of this year which stood in local currency is about Tk. 23100 crore.
In December, the last month of the outgoing year, expatriates sent $198,987 which is more than Tk. 21,800 crore. Besides, in the first 9 days of February this month, a total of $63 crore and 17 million remittances have already arrived through banking channels which more than $70 million is coming in every day. If this trend continues, it will stand at $2 billion this month as well.
The central bank said that the remittance sending flow is showing positive trend for proper channel initiative, it will be doubled. Basically, Bangladeshi expatriates encourage sending remittances through legal channels for getting extra incentive.
Regarding the issue, Md. Mezbaul Haque, Spokesperson and Executive Director of Bangladesh Bank said that the reserve mainly depends on remittances, export earnings and foreign loans and grants. So policies have been eased to boost remittance. A positive campaign has been launched among the expatriates and a special team is working to stop sending illegally (Hundi).
Besides, we emphasized on monitoring to enhance export income. In the meantime, the second installment of the IMF and the ADB loan has been adjusted to the reserve. A few more loans are in the pipeline. Remittances will double in future, he added.
