Gross official reserves, with and without Asian Clearing Union (ACU) funds, were at $5,357 million and $5,097 million, respectively, by end December 2009, the Central Bank said this week.
“This includes short-term net inflows to the Government Treasury bills of $277 million and Treasury bonds of $1,068 million. Based on the previous 12 months average imports ($823 million per month), the gross official reserves, without ACU funds, were equivalent to 6.2 months of imports,” the bank said in a statement.
Both, exports and imports reported positive growth in December 2009, on a year-on-year basis. Export earnings grew by 6.4 % in December to $723 million fuelled by agricultural exports, which grew by 40.2 % led by the high prices garnered by tea and rubber in the international commodity markets. Expenditure on imports grew marginally by 0.5 % in December to $1,054 million. Imports of intermediate goods and consumer goods were the key drivers of this growth.
The deficit in the trade account was off-set by the higher inflows of workers’ remittances. During 2009, workers’ remittances increased by 14.1 $ to $3,330.3 million. As a result, workers’ remittances were US dollars 532 million (about 19 per cent) in excess of the trade deficit. |
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