Welcome to Business Outlook
Related Articles
Bangladesh Bank has sold US dollar at Tk 101 each to banks for the first time, giving indication that it is likely to devalue the local currency to reflect the market reality.
The central bank sold $89 million to banks on February 1 to enable the financial institutions to clear import bills on behalf their clients, said a BB official, seeking anonymity.
The latest depreciation comes nearly a month after the Bangladesh Bank sold the greenback to banks at Tk 100 to help settle import payments.
In the interbank market, the greenback traded at Tk 107 yesterday, reflecting 24.4 per cent loss of value of the taka against the US dollar from Tk 86 a year ago.
Like many other currencies, Bangladesh’s taka has been under pressure against the dollar over the last one year owing to higher import payments than overall receipts from export and remittance.
This forced the central bank to devalue its selling rate of the greenback several times in the last year, which caused the country’s foreign exchange reserves to sink from $44.99 billion a year ago to $32.69 billion after the addition of the first instalment of IMF’s loan of $427.26 million yesterday.
(TDS)
