Bangladesh’s 2014-15 fiscal trade deficit balloons to 10 bln USD on import pick-up

DHAKA, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) — Bangladesh’s trade deficit ballooned in the last fiscal year 2014-15 concluded in June on the back of an increase in imports, said a central bank official Wednesday.
Trade deficit in the last fiscal year 2014-15 (July 2014-June 2015) surged 45.97 percent to about 10 billion U.S. dollars compared to a year earlier, said the Bangladesh Bank (BB) official.
The official, who preferred to be unnamed, told Xinhua that the country’s import payment was 40.69 billion U.S. dollars, up 11 percent, in the last fiscal year while earnings from exports stood at 30.77 billion U.S. dollars, up 3.3 percent, during the same period.
The gap between Bangladesh’s export earnings and import payments in July-May period of the last fiscal year was 9.46 billion U.S. dollars, it showed.
Officials said remittances from nearly nine million Bangladeshis, living and working abroad, helped offset the impact of the trade shortfall and kept the overall balance of payments in surplus.
The BB data showed in the 2014-15 financial year, inflow of remittances stood at nearly 14.23 billion U.S. dollars.  Enditem