Cenbank raises dollar selling rate again to Tk102

Although the Bangladesh Bank has been unable to provide sufficient dollars to meet the demands of banks, it has increased the dollar rate from Tk 101 to Tk 102 – the price at which banks are required to purchase the greenback.

Officials from the Bangladesh Bank stated that they raised the rate to align it with the rates set by commercial banks.

"The central bank raised the rate as part of its effort to reduce the gap with the commercial banks in terms of dollar rates. At the same time, it is also trying to keep the country's reserves in a stable position," a Bangladesh Bank senior official, wishing to remain unnamed, told The Business Standard.

"I agree that the sales of dollars are increasing pressure on reserves. It is also true that the reserves have been kept for bad times."

"The dollars we are selling from the reserve are being used in the payments of essential commodities and various government imports, which decreases pressure on banks to pay [other] import payments"

Earlier on 1 February, the central bank raised the exchange rate by Tk1 to Tk101 per dollar for greenbacks from reserves. In total, it raised the price of dollars 13 times since the beginning of the current fiscal year (FY23).

Meanwhile, government banks – which the Bangladesh Bank usually supplies dollars presently – said they are not getting dollars from the central bank as per their demand. "For example, we were supplied dollars significantly less than our requisition on Wednesday," the treasury head of a government bank, who wished to remain unnamed, told The Business Standard.

Mentioning that the current demand for dollars in LC payment is high, he added that they are carefully trading dollars now as some state-owned banks made losses last year by selling dollars at lower rates.

The Bangladesh Bank now terms the dollar price hike as "adjustment", which used to be considered as the depreciation of the taka against the dollar earlier.

Sales of dollars from reserves surpass $10bn

The sales of dollars from the central bank reserves surpassed the $ 10-billion mark so far this fiscal, the latest Bangladesh Bank data said.

On Wednesday, the central bank's dollar sales amounted to $10.004 billion, which was $9.95 billion a day ago.

In FY22, it sold a total of $7.62 billion. In the same year, it bought around $8 billion from banks due to low imports and high remittance inflows amid the pandemic.

At the end of Tuesday, the foreign exchange reserves of the central bank were $32.33 billion. It is expected to come down to some $31 billion after the $1.1 billion Asian Clearing Union payment due in the first week of this month.

Dollar rate increases to Tk104 for export proceeds

Exporters are now getting Tk104 per dollar against their export proceeds.

The Association of Bankers Bangladesh and the Bangladesh Foreign Exchange Dealers Association in an online meeting on Tuesday decided to increase the dollar rate by Tk1 to Tk104. Banks implemented the rate on Wednesday.