Bangladesh’s forex reserves reach 18.07 bln USD in December‏

Bangladesh’s foreign exchange reserves reached 18.07 billion U.S. dollars at the end of December last year, a central bank official said Wednesday.
The Bangladesh Bank (BB) official, who preferred to be unnamed, said “the country’s foreign exchange reserves stood at 18,074.57 million U.S. dollars at the end of the last month after reaching 17,105.87 million U.S. dollars at the end of November.”
On the back of an increase in exports and steady inflow of remittances, Bangladesh’s foreign exchange reserve on Dec. 19 hit an all-time high of 18 billion U.S. dollars.
For the first time in October last year the country’s foreign exchange reserves touched the 17 billion U.S. dollar mark.
Officials had earlier said almost a steady inflow of remittances has mainly driven Bangladesh’s foreign exchange reserve to set a new record, reflecting the country’s strength from the economical and financial point of view.
Millions of non-resident Bangladeshis in the first five months of the current2013-14 fiscal year (July 2013-June 2014) sent home 5.55 billion U.S. dollars, showed the BB data.
On the other hand, Export Promotion Bureau data released recently showed that driven by ready-made garments, Bangladesh’s exports in the first quarter of the 2013-14 fiscal year surged 17 percent to nearly 10 billion U.S. dollars.
Bangladesh, with a population of about 153 million, needs a reserve of about 10 billion U.S. dollars to meet its import bills for three months in light of an internationally accepted standard. Source: Xinhua