Dhaka, July 8 -- The foreign exchange reserves held by Bangladesh Bank have dropped below the $25 billion mark following the payment of import bills through the Asian Clearing Union (ACU).

A total of $2.02 billion had been paid to ACU to cover the bills for the past two months, the bank's Executive Director and spokesman Arief Hossain Khan told reporters on Tuesday.

"As a result, reserves calculated under the BPM6 method used by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) now stand at $24.45 billion. The gross reserve is slightly less than $29.52 billion," he added.

However, Bangladesh Bank did not disclose the net reserve figure.

According to the bank's data, as of Jul 2, reserves under the BPM6 method were $26.68 billion, while gross rese...