Pressure on Bangladesh's foreign-exchange reserves has intensified gradually, with an outlook of dropping to US$37 billion in the first week of September from $39.05 billion as of Wednesday.
Official sources make such a forecast, while the central bank continues selling the US dollar at comparatively lower prices to the banks in a bid to cushion the crunch.
The Bangladesh Bank (BB) is scheduled to make a routine payment worth $1.73 billion to the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) against imports made during the July-August period of 2022.
Different ministries, including power, energy and mineral resources along with agriculture, now prefer to collect the greenback from the central bank through mostly state-owned commercial banks (SoCBs) to settle their import-payment obligations for essentials, including fuel oils, the officials explain.
The central bank is now selling the US currency at Tk 95 per unit to the banks as foreign-currency liquidity for footing import-payments bills, particularly for petroleum products, liquefied natural gas (LNG), food- grains and fertilisers.
However, most of the authorised dealer (AD) banks traded the greenback at rates ranging between Tk 95.05 and Tk 108 to their customers on Wednesday for settling the import-payment obligations, according to market operators.
They also said the banks were fixing the selling rate of the US dollar to the importers in accordance with buying rates of the greenback from exporters as well as inward remittances from the overseas exchange houses.
The banks are charging higher rates of the US dollar to the importers as the overseas exchange houses are quoting increased rates of the inward remittances continuously, they explained.
Most of the banks received the inward remittances offering maximum at Tk 114 on Wednesday instead of Tk 111 two days before through the overseas exchange houses.
Talking to the FE, a senior treasury official at a leading private commercial bank said the regulators should address issues, particularly quoting higher rates for inward remittances by the overseas exchange houses, immediately to bring stability in the market.
He also predicted that the ongoing pressure on the forex market might ease slightly within the middle of September if the import monitoring by the BB continues.
"Actually, we are compelled to sell the US dollar from the reserves almost every working day to clear such import-payment obligations through mostly the SoCBs," a senior BB official told the FE while replying to a query.
He also said the central bank is providing the US dollar as foreign-currency liquidity support to scheduled banks continuously for managing the forex-market volatility.
"Such support is likely to continue in the coming days in line with the market requirements," the central banker adds.
As part of the ongoing moves, the central bank sold $50 million more directly to three SoCBs on Wednesday to help them meet a growing demand for the greenback as global price rises have led to import-cost escalation with its resultant pressures on reserves of Bangladesh, as also of many other countries.
The settlement of letters of credit (LC), generally known as actual import, in terms of value, stood at $6.79 billion in July against $6.80 billion a month before. It was $6.16 billion in May 2022.
On the other hand, the opening of LCs, generally known as import orders, dropped more than 38 per cent to $4.78 billion in July 2022 from $6.60 billion a month before. It was $5.43 billion in May 2022.
The BB has so far injected $2.49 billion from the reserves directly into commercial banks as liquidity support for import payments in the current fiscal year (FY), 2022-23.
In FY22, the central bank sold $7.62 billion from the reserves to the banks for the same purpose.
Bangladesh's forex reserves stood at $39.05 billion on Wednesday against $39. 04 billion of the previous working day, according to latest official figures.
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