Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman has advised the banks and financial institutions of ACU (Asian Clearing Union) member countries to be more active in each other’s territories for boosting regional trade and investment.

Central banks of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are the members of the ACU, which facilitates payments among the member countries for eligible transactions against export and import.

Addressing the 41st meeting of the ACU in Kathmandu, Nepal today, Bangladesh Bank governor said the central banks under the ACU umbrella could act concertedly towards expanding presence and engagement of banks and financial institutions of ACU member countries to shore up their trade and investment.

To this effect, he spelt out some specific recommendations, which was made available to media from the central bank. The recommendations include broadening and up scaling of ACU swap arrangement similar to the bilateral swap arrangements between central banks in the ASEAN+3 Chiang Mai initiative, and reintroduction of settlement of intra union trade transactions in member country currencies.

Referring to India’s initiative to adopt an intra states trade settlement with Brazil, Russia China and Singapore, Atiur said ACU would observe the outcome of this initiative for drawing the ACU strategy to manage the risk of such settlement.

He said the global community is increasingly looking up to this region as a key growth driver in the global economy when the central banks need to prepare the ACU to play its role with optimal use of its potentials.

According to ACU Secretariat Newsletters data, export receipt and import payment of Bangladesh with other ACU members increased 99.6 and 23.1 percent respectively in 2011 compared to 2010, although total ACU intra-union imports and exports registered a 29.5 percent decline. January-February 2012 transaction volumes were also on declining trend, both for Bangladesh and Union wide totals

News: Daily Sun/ Bangladesh/ 18-May-2012