Bangladesh received $2.86 billion in remittances in July, the first month of the current 2026-27 fiscal year — higher than both the previous month and the same period a year earlier. But with energy and fertiliser import costs rising, fresh pressure has built in the dollar market, pushing the interbank rate to 123.82 taka per dollar.
According to Bangladesh Bank data, expatriates sent $35.59 billion home through banking channels in 2025-26, up $5.26 billion, or 17.34 percent, from the previous fiscal year. In the year before that, remittances had risen by $6.42 billion, or 26.83 percent.
Although the remittance flow remains positive, other sources of foreign-currency earnings are not in the hoped-for position. In the first 11 months of 2025-26, import spending rose by $3.76 billion, or 5.88 percent. Over the same period, export earnings fell by $830 million, or 2.08 percent.
Officials said the pressure on the dollar had come from higher spending on energy and fertiliser imports. In the first 11 months of the fiscal year, spending on petroleum-product imports was $9.03 billion, up $4.155 billion from the same period a year earlier. Fertiliser import spending rose by $1.09 billion.
Pressure on the dollar market is somewhat contained, however, because spending on imports of consumer goods, industrial intermediate raw materials and garment-sector raw materials has fallen.
According to Bangladesh Bank, the country’s gross foreign-exchange reserves stood at $36.56 billion at the end of July. Under the IMF’s BPM6 method, the reserves amount to $31.75 billion.
Central bank officials said that although temporary pressure had emerged in the dollar market, remittances through legal channels were rising because of a tough stance against money laundering and hundi. The central bank was also keeping up regular monitoring to keep market conditions stable.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report