Bangladesh's foreign exchange inflows pose a threat to its inflation, which is set to end the fiscal year at 6.5 percent from less than 6 percent now, the country's central bank chief said on Tuesday. "Reserves will be touching $10 billion very soon. Managing surplus is becoming a problem ... Unless we can invest some of these dollars, chance is that inflation can pick up," Atiur Rahman said on the sidelines of a banking conference in Mumbai.
Bangladesh received a record $937.91 million in remittances from workers overseas in August, up 30 percent from a year earlier, and on September 1 its exchange reserves surged to an all-time high of more than $9 billion.
Rahman said the country's economy would grow more than 6 percent in the current fiscal year ending June 2010, compared with an earlier official projection of 5.5-6 percent growth. Exports will grow to above the $16 billion estimated for the current year, he said, adding that as of April, the country's exports stood at $11.75 billion. Bangladesh's exports rose 10.3 percent to $15.6 billion in the 2008/09 fiscal year, the lowest growth in six years.