Dollar gets costlier  

Buying the US dollar from Bangladesh Bank’s reverses becomes further costlier as the central bank again raised the exchange rate by Tk 1.50 to Tk 106 each Thursday in a readjustment process.

Officials concerned said the policy-rate raise came as part of a plan to up the exchange rate of the global reserve currency further to reach Tk 106 by this June in line with suggestion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for reaching a uniform exchange rate of the dollar on the market.

The latest enhancement in the exchange rate of the US dollar, sold from the forex reserves, came a day after the Bangladesh Foreign Exchange Dealers’ Association (BAFEDA) and the Association of Bankers, Bangladesh (ABB) had increased the exchange rate on export proceeds and remittance by Tk 1.0 and Tk 0.50 respectively.

With the revised rates by the foreign exchange dealers and banks, exporters are now getting their export proceeds encashed at Tk 107 instead of Tk 106 while the Bangladeshi expatriates working abroad will get Tk 108.50 per dollar in a raise from Tk 108.

Confirming the development, a BB official said the central bank raised the taka-dollar exchange rate by Tk 1.50 to Tk 106 to minimise the differences among existing multiple rates.

“The Bangladesh Bank plans to ensure a unified dollar rate on the forex market and the latest revision was a part of the process,” he said.

Even in the half-yearly Monetary Policy Statement (MPS), announced last month, the central bank mentioned that the difference in the regulated rates would be maximum two-percentage points.

As part of the parity move, the BB raised the dollar-taka exchange rates several times in the past months. The exchange rate was Tk 96 on September 12 last year.

Following consistent rise in the rates—in tune with a global crunch of the international treading currency—the BB is now selling the dollar to the banks at Tk 106 each.

The taka depreciation in exchange with the dollar, economists say, raises the cost of both production and import, with its domino effect on inflation and price rises.        

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