Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) – The central bank purchased US$26 million more from different commercial banks Wednesday aiming to keep the inter-bank foreign exchange market stable.

“We’ve bought the US currency from the banks directly to help them comply with the net open position (NOP) rules on holding foreign exchange,” a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) told BBN in Dhaka.

He also said such intervention will continue in line with the market requirement.

On Tuesday, the central bank also similarly purchased $5 million from a private commercial bank on the same ground, the BB officials confirmed.

The central bank bought $294 million from the commercial banks directly form July 2 to July 15 as part of its intervention in the market.

In fiscal 2008-09, the central bank of Bangladesh bought a total of $1.511 billion directly from the commercial banks against only $202.50 million of the previous fiscal, the BB’s data showed.

The BB officials also said the flow of foreign exchange has increased in the market because of falling trend in import recently.

The country’s overall import dropped by nearly 11 per cent in June over that of the pervious month because of a falling trend in prices of commodities in the global market, they added.

The letters of credit (LCs) against import worth $1.428 billion were settled in June over that of $1.605 billion in May, according to the central bank provisional statistics.

BBN/SS/SI/AD-15July09-7:43 pm (BST)