The country's foreign exchange reserves yesterday rose past $30 billion as the inflow of remittances is now maintaining an upward trend ahead of Eid-ul-Azha. 

The reserves stood at $30.01 billion yesterday in contrast to $29.95 billion on Tuesday, said a Bangladesh Bank official.

The reserves stood at $41.82 billion at the end of June last year.

Although the central bank yesterday sold dollars to the tune of $74 million to some commercial banks to help them clear their import bills, reserves surpassed $30 billion riding on the higher inflow of remittances.

A finance ministry official said the Asian Development Bank has recently given Bangladesh $400 million in budget support, which also led to a hike in the forex reserve.

The BB has so far injected $13.43 billion into the banking sector this fiscal year.

Expatriate Bangladeshis sent remittances amounting to $1.53 billion in the first 20 days of this month whereas it was $1.10 billion during the same period a year ago.

Between July 1 and June 20 this fiscal year, inflow of remittance stood at $20.94 billion, up 3 per cent year-on-year.

Remittances usually increase centring Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha – the biggest religious festivals for Muslims – as expatriates send their hard-earned money to their near and dear ones to celebrate the occasions.

The BB officials said some banks are now enjoying a surplus of the greenback at the moment, which was why they sold some dollars to the central bank.

Besides, the central bank also got a good amount of dollars from foreign sources, so the reserves yesterday crossed $30 billion.

The reserves declined to $29.77 billion on May 7 when the central bank cleared import bills to the tune of $1.18 billion with Asian Clearing Union (ACU).

The ACU is an arrangement to settle payments for intra-regional transactions among member countries, including Bangladesh.

India, Bhutan, Iran, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka are other members of the Tehran-headquartered ACU.

The member countries of the ACU clear their payments once every two months.

Two days later, however, the reserve increased to $30.36 billion after the loans provided by the World Bank reached the reserves.

The multilateral lender released $507 million to the government, giving a little bit of breathing space to the economy from the ongoing stress in the different zones of the macroeconomy.

But the reserves slipped below the $30-billion mark again on May 25.