AMN/ WEB DESK
Bangladesh will adopt the International Monetary Fund (IMF) mandated method to calculate its foreign reserves, said the Bank of Bangladesh in its announcement on Monetary policy on Sunday. The calculation of foreign exchange holdings of the country will now be In line with the IMF’s 6th edition of the Balance of Payment and International Investment Position Manual (BMM6). Bank of Bangladesh will calculate and publish the gross international reserve as per the new method.
According to ‘Bangladesh Development Update’ published by the World Bank in April 2023, moving to the IMF methodology would take out the amount committed by the government to the export development fund worth USD 6 billions January 2023, Bangladesh Infrastructure Development Fund of USD 2 billion and swap arrangement with Sri Lanka amounting to USD 200 million from the calculation of foreign exchange reserve of the country. Some analysts say, this could adversely affect the figures for the Foreign Exchange reserve of Bangladesh which stood at USD 29.87 billion in May 2023 as per the current method of calculation. However, while announcing the new Monetary policy, Bank of Bangladesh said that its foreign exchange reserve will rise to USD 30 billion which is equivalent to 5 months import.
Bank of Bangladesh also announced that it will implement a unified and market driven single exchange rate regime. It will allow the market forces to determine the exchange rate between Bangladeshi Taka (BDT) and foreign currencies including USD. This was also among the recommendations of the IMF while approving the USD 4.7 billion loan to Bangladesh in January this year.