{"id":233861,"date":"2025-07-03T05:13:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T05:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/233861\/"},"modified":"2025-07-03T05:13:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T05:13:15","slug":"govt-to-pay-3-year-high-acu-bill-of-2b-next-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/233861\/","title":{"rendered":"Govt to pay 3-year high ACU bill of $2b next week"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bangladesh is set to pay nearly $2 billion to the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) \u2013 marking the highest bi-monthly ACU payment in three years \u2013 covering import payments for May and June.<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to a senior policymaker at the central bank, this payment will be made next Monday. As of yesterday, the country’s foreign exchange reserves stood at $26.69 billion (calculated under BPM6 standards), meaning that even after the ACU payment, reserves will remain above $24.5 billion.<\/p>\n

Bangladesh clears its ACU bills every two months. The previous ACU payment of $1.88 billion was made on 7 May, covering March\u2013April imports. Despite that, reserves then remained above $20 billion under BPM6 calculations.<\/p>\n


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The ACU, headquartered in Tehran, facilitates regional payments among nine countries: India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Iran, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

This recent surge in imports is being interpreted positively by bankers, who see it as an indication of improved foreign exchange liquidity in the banking sector.<\/p>\n

According to central bank data, Bangladesh last paid $1.96 billion in July 2022 for imports during May\u2013June of that year. Since then, ACU payments have been on a declining trend, with bi-monthly payments staying below $1.3 billion throughout 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The amounts began rising again from the September\u2013October 2023 cycle, reaching the $2 billion mark this May\u2013June, the highest in the past three years.<\/p>\n

A senior central bank official explained that before 2022, Bangladesh would routinely pay around $2 billion per ACU cycle. However, due to the dollar crisis, the central bank imposed various restrictions on imports, which led to a decrease in both imports and ACU payments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, with more stable foreign reserves and reduced exchange rate volatility, imports are gradually increasing again, including from ACU countries, raising the payment amount.<\/p>\n

Another policymaker noted that despite the rise in imports, reserves have not declined. At the end of July last year, reserves were $20.39 billion under BPM6. Since then, remittance inflows have grown by 27%, and exports by 8.5%, helping maintain reserve stability.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Additionally, Bangladesh recently received $1.35 billion from the IMF, about $900 million from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), $350 million from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and around $400 million from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), all of which have helped boost reserves. Compared to recent years, the foreign reserve position is now considerably stronger.<\/p>\n

Central bank data also shows that in the July\u2013April period of the current fiscal year, the opening of import LCs increased by 2.98% compared to the same period the previous year. Imports of consumer goods, industrial raw materials, and other items rose, while imports of capital machinery declined by 27.5%. Imports of intermediate goods and petroleum also dropped.<\/p>\n

Asked about the reason behind the increased ACU payments, a managing director of a private bank explained, “Import demand from Bangladeshi consumers remains high, making continued imports essential.”<\/p>\n

A large portion of Bangladesh’s imports come from ACU countries, particularly essential goods and raw materials for export industries, mostly sourced from nearby nations. As a result, obligations to those countries have risen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, he added, Bangladesh needs to further increase overall imports, particularly capital machinery imports, which continue to decline and reflect a sluggish investment environment in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bangladesh is set to pay nearly $2 billion to the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) \u2013 marking the highest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3090],"tags":[51,1700,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-233861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114787595497075111","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}