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Trade deficit shrinks

Rejaul Karim Byron
Trade deficit in the first eight months of the current fiscal year fell 22 percent to $3.56 billion year-on-year due to higher exports and slow import growth.
The fall in trade deficit raised the current account surplus to $2.02 billion during July-February' despite a decline in remittances.
Thanks to a favourable external sector in recent times, the country's foreign currency reserves crossed the $20-billion mark this month.
The foreign exchange reserves were $15.31 billion on June 30, 2013 and in the last eight months it broke four records to reach $20.08 billion on April 15.
During the period, remittances fell 6.63 percent but exports rose around 14 percent and imports 6.24 percent, which were the main reasons behind the decline in trade deficit and a surge in the reserves.
"This is a good cushion to have against the possibility of yet another round of political instability," the World Bank said last week.
The high level of reserves helped Bangladesh's sovereign rating needed to catalyse higher foreign direct investment.
On Thursday global rating agency Moody's in its first rating after the January 5 parliamentary' elections gave a stable outlook to Bangladesh's credit rating, which is a resounding endorsement for the government.
"The stable outlook reflects prospects for continuing economic stability despite recent electoral pressures," Moody's said while retaining the credit rating of Ba3 for Bangladesh.
The net FDI increased 3.8 percent to $1.15 billion year-on-year during the July-February period, according to Bangladesh Bank.
Thanks to the huge surplus in the current account balance, the taka has been gaining against the dollar.
Despite intervention by the central bank, the average exchange rate in the inter-bank foreign exchange market dropped by 8 basis points to Tk 77.67 on April 15 compared to June 30 last year.
The WB report said Bangladesh Bank's exchange rate policy contributed to the reserves build-up as well as protecting the competitiveness of exports.
Higher inflows associated with buoyant exports and weak import demand resulted in excess supply of foreign exchange in the inter-bank market leading to over 5 percent nominal appreciation of the taka against the dollar in fiscal 2013 despite BB's purchase of $4.5 billion.
The nominal exchange rate would have appreciated further in the absence of $3.3 billion BB purchase of foreign exchange in the first ten months of fiscal 2014, the WB report added.