Bangladesh Bank made a payment of $1.37 billion to the Asian Clearing Union on Sunday to settle import bills for January and February.
The payment, made every two months, will be drawn from the country’s foreign exchange reserves.
According to International Monetary Fund guidelines, Bangladesh’s gross reserves stood at $29.38 billion on Sunday, while the central bank’s conventional calculation placed the figure at $34.10 billion.
The figures were $30.76 billion and $35.49 billion respectively on March 5.
The ACU is a regional settlement arrangement through which participating countries — Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka — clear payments for intra-regional trade on a net multilateral basis via their central banks.
Bangladesh’s reserves had plunged to around $18 billion by the end of 2023 after three years of continuous dollar sales to stabilise the exchange rate.
However, the situation has improved since political changes in August 2024.
The central bank has halted dollar sales and instead resumed purchases to counter depreciation pressures and maintain stability.
BB officials said that Bangladesh Bank bought about $5.5 billion from banks since July 2025.
The improvement in reserves is also supported by robust remittance inflows and stronger export earnings in recent months.
Since August 5, remittance inflow has averaged $2.5 billion per month.
Inflows rose by 21.4 per cent to $22.45 billion in the July-February period of FY26, compared with those of $15.96 billion in the same period a year earlier, aided by a competitive exchange rate, government incentives, wider use of agent banking and mobile financial services, and tighter scrutiny of informal transfers.
While inflows strengthened, import payments also increased.
Data showed that import payments reached $33.67 billion in July-December 2025, up from $32.08 billion in the same period of 2024.
At the same time, export earnings declined slightly to $22.12 billion in July-December 2025 from $22.32 billion a year earlier.
The exchange rate of the US dollar has risen steadily in recent years. The rate climbed to Tk 122 in 2025, up from Tk 106 in June 2023, Tk 93.45 in June 2022, and Tk 84.81 in June 2021.
The central bank said that pressure in the foreign exchange market had eased due to favourable developments in the balance of payments.
Bangladesh Bank calculates both gross international reserves (GIR) and net international reserves (NIR) under the IMF’s Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual, sixth edition (BPM6), as part of its reserve reporting standards.
