The country’s foreign exchange reserves have come down to 19 billion. Reserves have been on a downward trend since the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) payments earlier this month. In the last week, the reserves have decreased by about 190 million dollars.

On January 9, Bangladesh Bank paid $1.67 billion for the import bill liability of ACU for November and December. As a result, the country’s foreign exchange reserves fell to $20 billion according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) accounting methodology BPM-6.

Then, last Wednesday, the reserves fell further to $19.93 billion according to the IMF accounting methodology BPM-6. According to Bangladesh Bank, the gross reserves stood at $25.22 billion.

Incidentally, the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) is an inter-regional settlement system between several Asian central banks. The prices of imports and exports between nine Asian countries are settled every two months through it. Akura’s member countries are – Bangladesh, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Bhutan and Maldives. Bangladesh’s import-export transactions with other countries are completed instantly.