Foreign exchange reserves of Bangladesh have crossed the $29-billion mark again.

The foreign currency reserves had crossed that mark for the first time on Apr 25, amidst widespread criticism over February’s $81 million cyber theft from the central bank’s account in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The reserves had dropped in the first week of May after paying $900 million in bills of Asian Clearing Union (ACU) for March and April, but went past $29 billion again in the past few days.

The amount stood at $29.23 billion at the end of Thursday, Bangladesh Bank spokesperson Shubhankar Saha told bdnews24.com.

That is sufficient to meet the country’s import bills for the next eight months.

The official said the reserves were in a ‘satisfactory’ condition for the past few years due to increase in export income and decrease in imports.

In February, hackers had tried to steal nearly $1 billion from the central bank's account at the New York Fed.

One fraudulent transfer to a Sri Lankan entity was reversed, but four transfers for a combined $81 million went to the Philippines and wound up being laundered through casinos and casino agents there. Most of the money remains missing.

The reserves crossed $28 billion for the first time on Feb 25. It dropped after the ACU bills for January and February were cleared in the first week of March and rose over $28 billion again.

According to the Export Promotion Bureau, Bangladesh sold goods worth $30.66 billion abroad in the 11 months (July-May) of the current 2015-16 financial year.

Exports are 9 percent higher than at the same time during the previous fiscal.

However, remittance from the Bangladeshi expatriates dropped 3.05 percent in this period.

On the other hand, the number of Letters of Credit (LC) opened in 10 months (July-April) of the current fiscal has gone down by 2 percent.

The amount involving the LCs to import fuel oil and food also dropped around 40 percent and over 38.52 percent, respectively.