We do not see any reasons to rejoice while assessing ours compared to other countries of our likes. However, some corners deserve a pat on the back for maintaining the strong upward trend amidst soaring commodity prices in the international markets while at the same time the dare measure of floating the BDT exchange rate has been taken. The following table indicates our weak position compared to others.

While the world's highest FX reserve is held by the mighty China surpassing the trillion-dollar mark last year, our 4 billion may seem tiny. However, A country's FX reserves if sufficient to cover for 3 months of its foreign obligations, is accepted as safe. This gives comfort to the foreign investors of the repatriation capacity of a particular country. Historically our reserves have been barely at that safe level or marginally lower. At present with the reserve at a level over USD 4 billion, covers for over 3 months of imports. We must bear in mind that the 3 months import coverage of our reserve is a dynamic number with the imports growing almost 20 percent on a year-on-year basis for the past few years. With growing exports and remittances at 20 to 30 percent plus rate, we can even reach higher levels of coverage.

High level of reserve helps attract new foreign investments. While good level of reserve attracts FDIs, new FDIs provide further boost to the reserve resulting in a movement in a cyclic direction. We can take the example of continuously growing FX reserve of India where the reserve at the end of April was $200 billion (excluding gold) compared to $170 billion at the end of 2006 and the FDIs are constantly growing. In our case too in the recent years, we have seen encouraging progress in similar direction with both new FDIs as well as reinvestments. A question has been raised by some of our intelligentsia whether this high reserve (though it is very meager by any standard and especially against the huge potential Bangladesh economy offers or seasonal crisis it may face) has been built up at the cost of the private sector growth or other growth sectors of the economy. It will possibly be an injustice to Bangladesh Bank, if we believe so. Bangladesh Bank was not seen buying dollars from the market as frequently as we have expected to them to do, at times to support the falling dollar in order to maintain the momentum of export and remittance growth. Rather banks suffering from excess FCY liquidity at times went to the central bank to square up in excess of the open position limit dollar holdings. However, one should not also forget that, like all other countries (what we see all the time being done by G-7 countries), it is the job of the central bank to support dollar as and when required. If Bangladesh Bank would not have supported dollars during the time of excess liquidity in the inter-bank market, we could have seen dollar at 63-65 taka even, which could be damaging for our growing exports and especially remittance of non-resident earnings through official channel. Planned way of managing forex also helped the central bank, to maintain an optimum exchange rate of (+-) 70- taka to a dollar.

Bangladesh Bank has been maintaining a strictly steady course since it started its voyage of reforms. The central bank governors have been like on a relay race continuously passing the baton to the successor who has been strong in navigating at the same course even during turbulence. Policies have remained consistent with drive for completion of missions of the predecessors. FX and monetary policies have been managed dispassionately with specific consideration of a developing nation like ours. One result of that is Bangladesh being one of the few countries to have managed to weather the Asian crisis of the late 90's. A standing ovation is due to Allah Malik Kazemi of the central bank for his courageous and professional pursuance of the FX and monetary policies for nearly the past two decades helping overcome crisis periods despite continuous reforms and deregulations. This career central banker has dedicated his life, all his wisdom, commitment and passion to build up an institution (especially a robust forex regime) against all odds. Now looking back we all, as Bangladeshis, take pride of a resilient central bank, a strong FX position for which he has been one of the architects to have decisively maintaining a low key, yet his presence has been very much imposing to us, especially who are engaged in financial sectors, through his guidance and presence of mind in formulating numerous prudent and timely policy making. At this cross roads of the future of the country, when we are finding it difficult to have "knowledge leaders" tested over time and situation, we pay our very humble tribute to this brilliant central banker who should be remembered by the nation for his contribution towards the reform of financial and monetary policies, which reflected the much needed reflection of reality stemming from global changes to equip us towards facing the highly competitive world.

This last paragraph is to bid farewell to an individual, an unsung hero (like many outstanding public servants, who could not defend their activities in public due to usual constraints), who has worked as the architect and even at the level of a daily labour to have pursued our reforms and built our FX reserves brick-by-brick over the past two decades. Though the current state of the private sector of our country doesn't seem to be well positioned for the most appropriate use of this resource of global stature, we need to ensure the utilisation of his talents for the benefit of this country rather than seeing entities or institutions across the border taking advantage. It is often felt by various quarters that we have an acute shortage of knowledge to reinforce the current government's strive to curb financial crimes; given this, we must not allow any qualified and focused resource to relax or get lost in the oblivion.

The writer is a banker