An increase in import of food grains and fuel oils has pushed up the country’s import by 12 per cent in December, said officials.
Bangladesh witnessed an import of $3.65 billion, in value, which is US$391.24 million more than that of the same period of the previous calendar year.
As per central bank’s statistics, the settlement of letters of credit (LCs), or actual import in December 2016 was $3.26 billion.
A senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) revealed this information to the FE over phone on Friday .
"The overall imports increased during the period under review mainly due to higher import of food grains particularly rice and wheat to meet the growing for the essentials in the local markets,” he said.
December’s import, however, marked a decline than that of the previous month of the same year.
November 2017's LC was $4.11 billion.
On the other hand, opening of fresh LCs, or import orders, rose by 2.05 per cent in December 2017 than that of the same period in the previous year.
