The central bank sold US$45 million more to three commercial banks directly on Monday to meet the growing demand for the greenback, officials said
“We’ve sold the US dollars to the banks to settle their import payment obligations,” a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) told the FE.
He also said the central bank will provide such foreign currency support to the banks continuously in line with the market requirement.
The US dollar was quoted at Tk 77.72 in the inter-bank foreign exchange market Monday against Tk 77.70 of the previous working day, market operators said.
Earlier on November 24 this year, the central bank resumed intervention in the foreign exchange market through selling the US dollar to the commercial banks directly after nearly two years and a half to keep the market stable.
As part of the move, the BB has so far sold $115 million to the commercial banks to meet the growing demand for the greenback.
“The demand for the US dollar picked up recently mainly due to higher import payment pressures particularly for petroleum products, fertiliser, capital machinery and scrap vessels,” a senior treasury official of a leading private commercial bank explained.
The country’s actual import in terms of settlement of letters of credit (LCs) increased by 11.10 per cent to US$12.94 billion during the July-October of FY 15 from $11.65 billion in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.
On the other hand, opening of LCs, generally known as import orders, rose by 12.01 per cent to $ 13.98 billion in the first four months of FY 15 from $12.48 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal.
The private banker also said the declining trend of both inward remittance and export earnings has pushed down the supply of the greenback in the market recently.
The rate of greenback for BC (bills for collection) selling at customer level stood at maximum Tk 79.20 Monday from Tk 78.00 on November 11 this year, the market operators added.
“The central bank should expedite its foreign currency support to the banks for keeping the market stable,” the banker noted.
-The Financial Express
