Bangladesh's foreign exchange reserve has crossed 3 billion U.S. dollars mark following the disbursement of a soft loan by a multilateral donor agency, local daily The Financial Express reported Monday.

According to the report, the foreign exchange reserve stood at 3.01 billion dollars Sunday. The existing reserve is equivalent to three months' import bill of the country.

Bangladesh Bank (BB), the central bank, has received a fund of about 100 million dollars from the World Bank under the project of the Second Education Development Policy Financing.

Increased flow of remittances, reasonable export growth and normal import trend have contributed to the rise in the foreign exchange reserve, BB officials said.

The reserve reached 3.07 billion dollars in 1995 but it declined to 2.03 billion dollars in 1996.

The reserve came down to 1 billion dollars, the lowest in a decade, in 2001.

Source: Xinhua