Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- The central bank of Bangladesh has intensified purchasing of the US dollar further from commercial banks after the Eid festival to keep the forex market stable.
As part of the move, the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country’s central bank, bought $ 85 million at market rate from six commercial banks on Monday to minimise mismatch between demand and supply of the foreign exchange in the market, officials said.
The supply side of the foreign currency is improving gradually due mainly to higher export earnings along with rising trend in inward remittances particularly in the month of June for Eid-ul-Fitr celebrations, they explained.
The US dollar was quoted at BDT 78.40 in the inter-bank forex market which remained unchanged from the previous level, market operators said.
On Thursday, the central bank similarly purchased $ 85 million from the banks on the same grounds.
A total of $ 285 million was bought from the commercial banks between July 11 and July 18 of the current fiscal year for offsetting its increased supply to the market, the BB data showed.
The country’s forex reserves reached $ 29.76 billion on Monday from $ 29.66 billion on the previous day following the purchase of US dollar.
“The BB is now helping the banks through purchasing the US dollar from them to comply with the net open position (NOP) rules for holding foreign exchange properly,” a senior central banker told BBN in Dhaka.
Currently, most commercial banks are holding a ‘sufficient’ amount of the US dollar due mainly to lower prices of essential commodities, including fuel oil, on the global market, a senior official of a leading private commercial bank said.
He also said the BB will have to buy more US dollars from the banks to keep the forex market stable in the near future.
BBN/SSR/AD