BB comes to aid of SCBs by selling dollars to them directly

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FE Report The central bank has strengthened its foreign exchange support through selling the US dollar directly and providing overdraft (OD) facilities to the commercial banks for settlement of import bills. As part of the operation, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) sold US$ 50 million at market rate to two state-owned commercial banks (SCBs) directly Tuesday to meet the growing demand for the greenback. The US dollar was quoted at Tk 76.48-Tk 76.51 in the inter-bank foreign exchange market on the day against Tk 76.48 of the previous working day, according to the BB statistics. "We've provided the foreign currency support to the SCBs to settle outstanding letters of credit (LCs) against imports of fuel oils," a BB senior official told the FE. He also said the central bank wants to minimise the mismatch between demand for, and supply of, foreign exchange in the market through providing such supports to the commercial banks. "The operation will continue in conformity with the need of the market," he said, adding that the BB is monitoring the overall foreign exchange (forex) market situation closely. The country's foreign exchange reserve stood at $9.62 billion Tuesday after the sale of $50 million by the central bank to the SCBs, the BB official added. The central bank has so far pumped in $306 million directly to the commercial banks to meet their increasing demand for the greenback in the current fiscal year, the BB data showed. Besides, BB provided OD facilities worth $25 million to a SCB on the same day on the same ground of settling bills for import of petroleum products, the central bank official said, adding that the amount of outstanding OD facilities stood at $356 million.