Business Report :
Bangladesh continues to see its trade gap widen as imports far outstrip export receipts as per latest official data that show imbalances on April count.
The April deficit in monthly turnover of trade in goods and services was as large as more than 140 per cent or $3.6 billion compared to the preceding month of March, according to the statistics released by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
Export receipts dropped by nearly 22 per cent to $4 billion in April.
Conversely, import costs increased nearly 15 per cent to $7.6 billion, the data show, upsetting the balance of trade.
Exports are likely to continue to struggle as external demand from key trading partners remained subdued in recent months.
Meanwhile, July-May export growth was just over 2 per cent while the May export receipts recorded more than 16 per cent negative growth over its previous period a year earlier.
Bangladesh is taking support from the IMF to stabilize its volatile forex market and macroeconomic challenges.
The IMF has said Bangladesh’s economy continues to face multiple challenges.
“Stubbornly high international commodity prices and continued global financial tightening have amplified macroeconomic vulnerabilities,” it said in its recent review on Bangladesh.
In response to these pressures, the authorities have recently undertaken bold exchange-rate reforms, the IMF said in its statement released on June 24 in course of appraisal of the country’s creditworthiness ahead of release of each tranche of its $4.7-billion lending package.
The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the second review under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF), Extended Fund Facility (EFF), and Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) arrangements for Bangladesh, allowing the authorities to withdraw about $928 million under the ECF/EFF, and about $220 million under the RSF.
This brings total disbursements under the ECF/EFF so far to about $1,856 million and under the RSF to about $439 million.