DHAKA, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- The central bank of Bangladesh has formed a cell dedicated to looking into the effectiveness of the country's anti-money laundering mechanisms.

Masud Biswas, head of the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU), the country's anti-money laundering watchdog, told journalists on Tuesday that the cell, which will work under the auspices of the BFIU, will carry out regular research on measures to prevent money laundering.

Apart from this, it will review the experiences of other countries to help with the government's efforts to bring back laundered money.

Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Abdur Rouf Talukder had earlier approved the operation of the cell.

Noting that most of the money was being laundered under the guise of foreign trade, Biswas said import costs had jumped 20-200 percent when the annual report for the 2020-21 fiscal year was published in October.

Against this backdrop, Talukder said a section of traders provided inflated figures for imports.

Also, he said money was smuggled out through hundis, an informal channel for making cross-border transactions.

Bangladesh's foreign exchange reserves fell below 34 billion U.S. dollars at the end of November this year, the latest central bank data showed.

In a bid to boost shrinking forex reserves, the central bank has taken various measures, including relaxed rules, to woo more remittances from millions of Bangladeshi people living and working abroad in recent months. Enditem

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