Bangladesh's trade deficit narrows to 14.61 bln USD on falling imports

DHAKA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Bangladesh's trade deficit in the first three quarters of the current 2022-23 fiscal year from July 2022 to June 2023 dipped by 41.62 percent to 14.61 billion U.S. dollars year on year, the latest central bank data showed.

The Bangladesh Bank (BB) data showed that the country's import payment was 53.94 billion dollars, down 12.33 percent, in the July-March period of the current fiscal year while earnings from exports stood at 39.33 billion dollars, up 7.76 percent, during the same period.

The BB data showed the gap between Bangladesh's export earnings and import payments in the July-March period of the previous 2021-22 fiscal year from July 2021 to June 2022 was 25.03 billion dollars.

A BB official who did not give his name said that remittances as always helped Bangladesh cushion the impact of the trade deficit.

Bangladesh received 15.3 billion dollars in remittances in the first nine months of the 2022-23 fiscal year.

Bangladesh's trade deficit ballooned to a record level of over 33 billion dollars in fiscal 2021-22 on the back of increased imports.

In its bid to boost the country's shrinking forex reserves which fell below 30 billion dollars last week, the BB has taken various measures in recent months to discourage imports.

As part of the measures, the BB in September last year paved the way for commercial banks in the country to maintain correspondent accounts in the the Chinese currency renminbi, or the yuan, to facilitate cross-border trade based on the Chinese currency.