Dollar reserves running low

Bangladesh Banks (BB) total foreign exchange reserves are now at $23.77 billion, but under the way the International Monetary Fund (IMF) counts money, its actually only $18.32 billion.  Even worse, the usable part of that money is less than $13 billion.

"Every month we need about $5 billion to buy things from other countries. To make things worse, last week we had to pay $1.63 billion from our reserves," a senior BB official said on Tuesday.

"The good news is that the IMF is giving us a loan, and the next part of that will arrive next month.  Also, more money might be coming from Bangladeshis working abroad because the price you get for sending money back home just went up. This could mean more dollars flowing into our reserves," he said.