Bangladesh's current account surplus rises

Dhaka, July 9 (IANS) Bangladesh's current account balance recorded a surplus of $754 million in July-May period of the 2011-12 fiscal ended last month, a central bank official said.

Quoting Bangladesh Bank (BB) data, the official said Sunday the current account balance showed a surplus of $754 million during the 11 months of the July 2011-June 2012 fiscal against the surplus of $365 million during the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, Xinhua reported.

The country's current account balance, which was back in the positive in November after entering the negative territory in October for the first time in about seven years, maintained its surplus trend so far this year, thanks to the remittance inflow and increase in export.

Central bank's current account balance and overall balance of payments have maintained positive trend as export earnings and inflow of remittances continued to grow though at a moderated pace, the BB official said.

Bangladesh's exports growth in July-May period of the last fiscal year surged about 7.44 percent year on year to $21.717 billion, the BB data showed.

On the other hand, it showed the inflow of remittances by millions of non-resident Bangladeshis in the 2011-12 fiscal year reached a record high of about $13 billion, over 10 percent higher than the same period a year ago.

Comfortable receipts of remittances also helped the central bank of Bangladesh cushion huge trade gap which swelled by over 6 percent year-on-year to about $8 billion during the first 11 months of the past 2011-12 fiscal year.