Dollar price increases to Tk92.50 Monday

The intermarket exchange rate of dollar has increased to Tk92.50 on Monday.

On Sunday, the exchange rate was Tk92.

Bangladesh Bank spokesman Md Serajul Islam confirmed the matter and said the rate fluctuates in the intermarket based on the market.

He also noted that the central bank sold $103 million on Monday.

The treasury heads of several banks said, on condition of anonymity, that some banks had opened LCs for traders at Tk93.95 exchange rate on Monday.

Besides, some banks have opened LCs at Tk93.50.  However, banks have collected remittances at Tk93 exchange rate.

An official of the concerned department of Bangladesh Bank said that the central bank is now selling dollars to pay the government import price.  And the government has to sell an average of $100 million a day.

However, at the market price of Tk92.50 for a dollar, no bank is getting any dollar to open an LC for their traders, he added.

The Association of Bankers, Bangladesh (ABB) and the Bangladesh Foreign Exchange Dealer's Association (BAFEDA) on Sunday met Bangladesh Bank Governor Fazle Kabir and called for increasing dollar supply to ease the foreign currency crisis that appeared owing to the soaring trade deficit and declining inflow of remittance.

In the meeting, the supply situation of dollars along with several other issues has been discussed. Bankers requested us to increase dollar supply and we also talked about how we can receive due payments from foreign entities fast," Serajul Islam, executive director of the central bank, told The Business Standard.

The foreign exchange reserves stood at $41.7 billion last week, down from $48 billion in August last year. The central bank has so far sold about $7 billion worth dollars to banks in the ongoing fiscal year.

The country's trade deficit hit a historic high of $27.56 billion in the first 10 months of the fiscal, with high import expenditures and low export earnings, according to the Bangladesh Bank.