DHAKA, July 15 (Xinhua) -- Bangladesh's trade deficit decreased by 884 million U.S. dollars to nearly 20 billion dollars in the first 11 months of the fiscal year 2024-25 (July 2024 to June 2025), showed the latest data from the Bangladesh Bank.

The central bank's data on Monday revealed that the country's import payment was 60.25 billion dollars during the July-May period, up 4.7 percent year-on-year, while earnings from exports stood at 40.87 billion dollars, up 9.4 percent.

The data showed that the gap between export earnings and import payments in the same period of the previous fiscal year (July 2023-June 2024) was 20.22 billion dollars.

Officials from the Bangladesh Bank said strong remittances from millions of Bangladeshis living and working abroad helped offset the impact of the deficit.

Bangladesh's trade deficit in the 2023-24 fiscal year was 22.43 billion dollars, according to data from the Bangladesh Bank. ■