Bangladesh's imports in the first half of the current 2011-12 fiscal ending June surpassed 17 billion U.S. dollars, posting 16.09 percent growth year on year, the central bank data showed Monday.

According to statistics of the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the settlement of letters of credit (LCs), generally known as actual imports, stood at 17,428.90 million U.S. dollars in July-December compared to 15,013.07 million U.S. dollars in the same period a year ago.

In July-December, the BB data showed, Bangladesh's overall import orders, however, dropped nearly 6 percent year on year.

The overall import orders, officially known as fresh opening of import letters of credit, declined to 18,207.11 million U.S. dollars in July-December against 19,332.84 million U.S. dollars in the same period of the last fiscal year, it showed.

The country's actual imports grew 38.6 percent to nearly 32 billion U.S. dollars in the last 2010-11 fiscal year (July 2010- June 2011).