After more than a year, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) and the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) corrected approximately US $ 14 billion in irregularities in export data, resulting in a positive financial account.
However, the economy’s health remains stable, and the country continues to suffer from a lack of foreign currencies to manage its external accounts or transactions with the rest of the world.
The financial account, which is an important component of the balance of payments, covers claims or liabilities owed to non-residents about financial assets. It consists of foreign direct investment, medium and long-term loans, trade credit, net aid flows, portfolio investments, and reserve assets.
On Wednesday, officials of the central bank said the EPB publishes figures based on the data from the customs department. Due to procedural reasons, the customs department took into account the same export data more than once in many cases, which is known as double or triple counting.
They stated that even if shipments were refused by customs, they were still considered when producing export statistics. As a result, EPB statistics showed that local exporters’ shipments exceeded their real sales in global markets.
The shortfall has been adjusted under the IMF’s US $ 4.7 billion lending programme.
Following the change, export earnings declined 6.8 per cent to US $ 33.67 billion in July-April 2023-24. It increased 3.93 per cent year on year to US $ 47.47 billion when the EPB released figures for the same period in May.
Bharat Tex Special Report 2026 
