The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The Awami League (AL) led grand alliance will start its new tenure with a good size of foreign exchange reserve alongside the negative current account balance.

The present foreign exchange reserve stands at $5.78 billion, while the current account balance deficit until September last was $280 million.

The Taka and USD exchange rate in yesterday's market was Tk 68.95, GBP at Tk 100.18 and Euro at Tk 95.72.

The wage earners' remittance until November of the current fiscal year was $3.74 billion with annual 33.56 per cent increase.

The average rate of inflation on the basis of consumer price index during December'08 came down to below 6 per cent. Due to price fall of fuel oil in the international market the prices of essential commodities are likely to come down bringing down the rate of inflation. But inflation was staying at double digit during the first ten months of 2008. People were facing immense trouble to buy daily needs.

Statistics shows that foreign exchange reserve was $ 3.7 billion during December 2006 before the BNP led four-party alliance government left power. The reserve rose to as high as $6.18 billion during the tenure of caretaker government.

During the rule of Hossain Mohammad Ershad in 1988-99 fiscal year the forex reserve was $ 900 million. The reserve came down to $520 million in 1990.

The reserve started rising during 1991 when BNP took office. In June 1991 it rose to $880 million and rose to $3.7 billion during 1995.

In the current fiscal year the GDP growth has been projected to be 6 per cent. However, following the global financial crisis the World Bank and IMF has predicted that country's GDP growth may come down below 4 per cent. But the Finance Adviser referring statistics said that GDP growth wouldn't come below 6 per cent.