Taka devalued by Tk0.30 against dollar

Taka was devalued further by Tk0.30 against the US dollar to Tk92.80 on Tuesday amid the ongoing crisis of the foreign currency owing to soaring trade deficit and declining remittance inflow.

The dollar sold at Tk92.50 on Monday.

"The central bank today supplied dollar worth $64 million to banks at the new rate, which was $103 million on Monday [at the previous rate]," Sirajul Islam, executive director and spokesperson of the Bangladesh Bank, told The Business Standard Tuesday evening.

The dollar price is now being revised every day based on supply and demand of the foreign currency. The central bank has been supplying dollars from its reserves to meet the shortage in the market.

As a result, the forex reserves came down to $41.44 billion on Tuesday, which was $48.06 billion in August last year.

Meanwhile, the interbank call money rate that reached a two-year high of 5.02% on Monday was also unchanged on Tuesday as liquidity crisis in banks has been on the rise.

The previous high rate of the call money market – where banks borrow from each other on an overnight basis – was recorded on 16 June 2020.

Rate for settling LCs instructed to keep at Tk93

The Bangladesh Bank on Tuesday verbally instructed commercial banks to settle their letters of credit (LCs) at the highest Tk93 per dollar. The instruction came as some banks settled those at over Tk93 per dollar the previous day, said a senior official of the central bank.

On Tuesday, most of the banks settled LCs at the instructed rate.

Bankers said it is becoming difficult to collect dollars from exchange houses at the price fixed by the central bank.