Trade deficit shrinks sharply as imports dip

Bangladesh's trade deficit in the first quarter of the current 2023-24 fiscal year (July 2023-June 2024) dipped by 76 per cent year-on-year to 1.82 billion US dollars, the latest official data showed Thursday.

According to the Bangladesh Bank (BB) data, Bangladesh's import payment was 14,749 million dollars, down 23.77 per cent, in the July-September period of the current fiscal year, while earnings from exports stood at 12,931 million dollars, 9.85 per cent higher, during the same period.

The country's gap between export earnings and import payments during the July-September period of the 2022-23 fiscal year (July 2022-June 2023) was estimated at 7.58 billion dollars, reports Xinhua.

The BB official said remittances from nearly 10 million Bangladeshis living and working abroad helped offset the impact of the trade shortfall and kept the overall balance of payments in surplus.

Bangladeshis living and working abroad remitted home 4.91 billion dollars in the first quarter of the current 2023-24 fiscal year, the BB data showed.

Bangladesh's trade deficit in the last 2022-23 fiscal year dipped by 48.41 per cent to 17.16 billion dollars year-on-year amid shrinking forex reserves-depressed imports.

In its bid to boost the country's shrinking forex reserves, which eroded to a reserve of around 20 billion this week, the bank has taken various measures to discourage imports.