The country's foreign exchange (forex) reserves dropped below $34 billion on Wednesday as the Bangladesh Bank continued selling dollars to banks.
According to central bank data, reserves dropped to $33.86 billion on November 30.
They sold over $6 billion to banks between July 1 and November 30 so far, which was $7.62 billion in the same period of FY22, the data also showed.
State-run banks in particular were taking dollar support for settling import payments of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation, Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation and Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation among other government agencies.
The reserve was $39.06 billion on August 31 earlier this year, and $46.2 billion in September 2021.
Settling high import payments was the main reason for the depletion of the forex reserve, BB officials said.
They said that imports were surging amid rising commodity prices, global supply chain disruptions and the Russia-Ukraine war.
The country's import payments increased to $19.34 billion in July-September from $17.32 billion in the same months of the past year.
Trade deficit widened to $7.54 billion in the July-September period compared with that of $6.77 billion in the same period in the past financial year.
Amid increasing balance of payments pressure and falling foreign exchange reserves, the government requested financial support from the International Monetary Fund in July.
Remittance and export earnings are prime tools for the bankers to meet the demand for dollars, but both are falling, the BB officials said.
The central bank had to inject dollars due to the severe shortage of the greenbacks on the financial market.
The exchange rate rose sharply to Tk108 from Tk84.8 against the US dollar within a year.
The BB approved the floating rate of dollars on September 14.