During July-August in the current fiscal year remittance worth US$ 1072.87 million flowed in, whereas in the corresponding period of last year the figure was $833.7 million.

Remittance worth $352.16 million came in last month, while $378.27 million in August and $342.44 million in July.

However, the reserve is not exactly inspiring. Yesterday it stood at $2.78 billion, which was $3.02 billion in June, 2005. Besides, after the payment of Asian Clearance Union import bill next month the reserve will face further fall.

The reserve is not growing mainly due to consistent rise in import in recent times. Though Bangladesh Bank has taken some measures to keep import volume within limit, it could not arrest the upward trend in import.

Fresh opening of Letter of Credits (LCs) for import in July-August in the current fiscal year stood at $ 2954 million, up by 17 percent compared to the corresponding period of last fiscal year. LCs opened for petroleum products during the same period soared to $326 million, up by 79 percent.

Last fiscal year also saw a rise of 21 percent in import, which was 13 percent in the previous year.