BB sold $2.31b in last fiscal

In the just-concluded fiscal year, Bangladesh Bank sold $2.31 billion to keep the currency market stable, reports bdnews24.com.

The figure is the highest in five years.

On Monday, the inter-bank exchange rate of the dollar stood at Tk 83.7 after an increment of 4.0 per cent from Tk 80.59 which was the rate a year earlier.

The foreign currency market had remained unstable since the beginning of the last fiscal year.

According to a BB report released last year, the consistent depreciation of the taka against the dollar is quite unusual.

The banks charged Tk 2.0 more for selling one dollar from businesses than the rate declared for the settlement of letters of credit, the report found.

As a result, the import cost increased and the foreign currency market became unstable despite the rise in inward remittances and export earnings.

Zaid Bakht, research director of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies or BIDS, said equipment imports necessary to implement infrastructure projects and the last year's higher rice import put pressure on the dollar price.

According to the BB, the overall import payment for goods increased by 25.18 per cent in the first 10 months of fiscal 2017-18, of which capital equipment import accounted for 31 per cent of the increment.

The central bank made a routine payment of $1.57 billion to the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) against imports during the January-February period of 2018. The import bill for Bangladesh has never been higher than this amount before.

For the May-June period, it will have to pay around $1.27 billion this week, said a BB official.

At present, the BB has more than $33 billion in forex reserves. After the ACU payment, the reserves will decline marginally.