Bangladesh's foreign exchange reserves fell below $21 billion after the payment of $1.42 billion in import bills through the Asian Clearing Union (ACU).

The ACU payments for May and June were cleared this week, said a Bangladesh Bank spokesperson.

After the payment, reserves stood at $20.46 billion at IMF method. At the same time gross reserve stood at $26.17billion.

Earlier the forex reserves were at $21.78 billion as on June 30 this year, according to the Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (BPM6), after a $2 billion inflow of loans from IMF and other multilateral donors.

The ACU is an arrangement for settling payments for intraregional transactions among eight countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

The reserves data was calculated based on the formula of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).