BB sells $45m to 5 banks
The central bank resumed its foreign-exchange support through selling the US dollar to the commercial banks after nearly two years and a half to keep the market stable, officials said.
As part of the move, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) sold US$45 million at market rate to five commercial banks directly Monday to meet the growing demand for the greenback.
“We’ve sold the US dollars to the banks for making their import payments for petroleum products, fertilisers, sugar and edible oils,” a BB senior official told the FE.
He also said the overall import payments that are growing recently indicate the confidence of businessmen being restored after a political gridlock late last year.
“It’s a good sign for our economy,” the central banker noted.
The country’s overall imports grew by nearly 11 per cent in the first quarter (Q1) of the current fiscal year (FY) due mainly to higher import of fuel oils and capital machinery.
The central bank earlier sold $10 million to a state-owned commercial bank directly on June 20, 2012, according to the central bank statistics.
BB’s latest move came against the backdrop of depreciating trend of the Bangladesh Taka (BDT) against the US dollar in recent days.
The BDT has depreciated by 0.26 per cent against the dollar in the last two weeks, following an increased demand for the greenback to settle import payments by the commercial banks.
According to the market operators, the US dollar was quoted at Tk 77.62-Tk 77.63 on the inter-bank foreign-exchange market on the day against Tk 77.40-Tk 77.44 on November 10 last.
“The existing trend of US$/BDT exchange rate will facilitate the country’s export as well as encourage the Bangladeshi nationals working abroad to remit their earnings,” the central banker noted.
Besides, the rate of greenback for BC (bills for collection) selling reached maximum Tk 79.20 Monday from Tk 78.00 on November 11 this year, they added.
“The rate of the US dollar for BC selling at customer level increased significantly during the period under review to settle the import payments,” a senior treasury official of a leading private commercial bank told the FE.
The exchange rate of the greenback for BC selling picked up in the last couple of days due to mismatch of funds between OBU (Offshore Banking Unit) and DBU (Domestic Banking Unit) of some banks, he observed.
“Some banks earlier transferred their excess US dollars to their OBU from DBU for financing their OBU customers”, the treasury official said while explaining the mismatch of the fund.
He also said the exchange rate of the US dollar for BC selling may ease in the coming days if the central bank injects foreign exchange in line with the market requirement.
