The reserves crossed the mark at the end of Tuesday, Bangladesh Bank’s Forex Reserves and Treasury Management Department General Manager Kazi Sayedur Rahman said.
 
Bangladesh will be able to pay import costs for up to seven months with this amount.

Rahman said export earnings and remittance put the foreign exchange reserves on a strong ground.
 
He also said Bangladesh had to spent less to buy oil as prices of oil dropped in the global market.
 
“It also helped the rise in the reserves,” he said.
 
According to the central bank, the reserves was $20.1 billion on Apr 22 last year.
 
On Apr 29 this year, the reserves topoed the $24 billion mark for the first time.
 
But they dropped again in the first week of May after Bangladesh Bank cleared 41.1 billion import payments to Asian Clearing Union (ACU) for March-April period.
 
ACU’s payments for June-May period will have to be cleared in the first week of July.
 
Rahman said the reserves would stay over the $24 billion mark until then.
 
In the first 11 months (July-May) of the 2014-15 fiscal year, expatriates remitted around $13.875 billion. The amount was 7.21 percent higher than the same period previous year.
 
According to the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), export earnings rose by three percent in July-May period of 2014-15 fiscal year from the previous year.
 
Reserves crossed $22 billion mark for the first time on Aug 7 last year. It had dropped due to the clearance of payments to ACU.
 
The reserves were $10 billion on Dec 10, 2009 and reached $15 billion in April 2013.
 
They crossed the $20 billion mark in April last year.
 
In line with international standard, a country has to have enough reserves to be able to pay import costs for three months.

ACU’s payment needs to be cleared every two months.