Bangladesh's Q1 trade deficit narrows by 32% to $1.27bn

Bangladesh's trade deficit in the first quarter of the current 2013-14 fiscal year ending June next narrowed by about 32.37 percent year on year to over 1.27 billion U.S. dollars, said a central bank official Monday. Quoting Bangladesh Bank (BB) data, the official who did not like to be named said Bangladesh import payment was 8,804 million U.S. dollars, down 9.37 percent, in July-September period of the current fiscal year 2013-14 (July 2013-June 2014) while earnings from exports stood at 7,536 million U.S. dollars, 22.04 percent higher, during the same period. The South Asian country's gap between export earnings and import payments during the July-September period of 2012-13 fiscal year (July 2012-June 2013) was estimated at 1,875 million U.S. dollars. The BB official said strong remittances from nearly 9 million Bangladeshis, living and working abroad, helped offset the impact of the trade shortfall and kept the overall balance of payments in surplus. Bangladeshis living and working abroad remitted home more than 3 billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter of the current 2013-14 fiscal year, BB data showed. Bangladesh's trade deficit between July 2012 and June 2013 slid by about 25 percent to 7.01 billion U.S. dollars year on year.