Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)-The central bank purchased US$41 million more from five commercial banks on Thursday aiming to keep the inter-bank foreign exchange market stable, officials said. 
“We’ve bought the US dollar at market rate from the commercial banks directly aiming to keep the rate of local currency stable against the greenback,” a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) said, adding that such intervention would continue in line with the market demand. 
On Wednesday, the central bank also similarly purchased $2.0 million from a private commercial bank on the same ground, the BB officials said.
A total of $186.50 million has been bought from the commercial banks, so far, in the current fiscal year as part of the central bank’s intervention in the market, the BB officials confirmed.
In fiscal 2009-10, the central bank bought a total of $2.16 billion directly from the commercial banks against $1.48 billion of the previous fiscal, the BB’s data showed.
 
BBN/SI/AD-19Aug10-5:25 pm (BST)