Reserves slip to $24.45b

Bangladesh's foreign exchange reserves declined by $2.02 billion after routine payments under the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) mechanism on Monday.

Gross reserves stood at $29.52 billion as of July 7, 2025, according to Bangladesh Bank data.

However, calculated under the IMF's prescribed method, reserves stood at $24.45 billion.

The ACU is an arrangement for settling payments for intraregional transactions among eight countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Bangladesh clears payments to ACU members every two months.

Reserves have remained under stress over the past two years, hurt by elevated import bills, sluggish export growth, and moderate remittance inflows.

Earlier, the country's foreign exchange reserves had risen above $31 billion after three multilateral lenders released $925 million to Bangladesh on June 26. A surge in remittance inflows ahead of Eid-ul-Azha also contributed to the earlier uptick.