The Bangladesh Taka (BDT) depreciated further against the US dollar on Tuesday despite the central bank's intervention in the market through selling the greenback to the commercial banks, bankers said.
The Bangladesh Bank (BB) sold $10 million at market rate to a state-owned commercial bank (SoCB) on the day to settle fertiliser import payment.
"The central bank may continue such intervention in line with the market requirement," a BB senior official told the FE.
He also said BB is closely monitoring the country's overall foreign exchange market situation.
The US dollar was quoted at Tk 77.65-77.66 in the inter-bank foreign exchange market on the day against Tk 77.62-77.63 of the previous working day, market operators said.
On Monday, the central bank directly sold $45 million to five commercial banks on the same ground.
Besides, the greenback exchange rate for BC (bills for collection) selling rose to maximum Tk 79.30 on Tuesday from Tk 79.20 of the previous working day, according to the market operators.
"The US dollar rate at customer level has increased in the recent days, mainly due to higher demand for the greenback to settle payment obligations," a senior official of a leading SoCB explained.
The country's overall import payment increased by more than 11 per cent in this October from that of the previous month.
The settlement of letters of credit (LCs), generally known as actual import, rose to US$ 3.15 billion in October 2014 from $2.84 billion in the corresponding period of the previous year, the BB data showed.
Opening of fresh LCs, generally known as import orders, increased by 9.14 per cent to $3.05 billion in this October from $2.79 billion in the same period of 2013.
"It's a temporary phenomenon, following slowdown in remittance inflow and export receipts than the overall payment commitments," the SoCB official observed.
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