USD exchange rate falls by Tk8.15 in less than 11 months in Bangladesh

The exchange rate of the greenback was Tk84.8 on August 1, 2021.

On the kerb market—a market for selling shares not dealt with on the normal stock exchange, or for dealing after hours—cash dollar was sold at Tk102 by mid-May, but has declined below Tk100 gradually amid regulatory intervention, Bangladeshi media reported.

Due to the massive import surge in the outgoing fiscal, the central bank injected around $7 billion into banks to prevent instability in the foreign exchange market.

As of June 14, most banks were selling the US dollar to importers at Tk93. However, many banks sold cash dollars to travellers at between Tk94 and Tk99.

Due to a huge increase in import payments, the country’s reserve dropped by $6.68 billion to $41.38 billion on June 15 this year. Its reserve rose to a record high of $48.06 billion in August 2021 from $32.76 billion in January 2020.

The Bangladesh Bank has recently slapped high margin on letters of credit opened to import luxurious and non-essential items. The central bank has also tightened monitoring on export and import shipments to tackle money laundering in the form of under-invoicing and over-invoicing.

The government has also imposed additional regulatory duties on import of non-essential items like flowers, fruits, furniture and cosmetics.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)