Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)– The central bank of Bangladesh continues to offer overdraft (OD) facilities to the commercial banks, particularly the state-owned commercial banks (SCB), for settlement of import bills, officials said. 
Under the move, the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country’s central bank, provided OD facilities for US$20 million on Thursday to help one SCB clear its fuel oil import bills. 
“We’ve provided the SCB such facilities to settle import payment bills for petroleum products,” a BB senior official said, adding that the central bank will continue to give such foreign currency support to the banks mainly for making import payments of essential items including food grins, petroleum products and power plant equipment.
The US dollar was quoted at BDT 73.4861 on Thursday for bills for collection (BC) selling for opening letters of credit (LC) against imports. It was at BDT 73.4758 of the previous day, according to the Bangladesh Foreign Exchange Dealers Association (BAFEDA) statistics.
The third currency, popularly known as cross currencies, practices increased recently that also pushed the rate of greenback in the country’s foreign exchange market, treasury officials said. 
The US dollar was quoted at BDT 71.15 on Thursday in the inter-bank foreign exchange market while the rate of greenback reached between BDT 73.50 and BDT 73.70 through third currieries route, they confirmed. 
They also said the supply of greenback in the market decreased since December last due mainly to higher import payments.
The country’s imports grew by nearly 40 percent during the first half of the current fiscal over that of the corresponding period of the last fiscal.
LCs against imports worth $ 15.001 billion were settled during July-December period of fiscal 2010-11 compared to $10.717 billion in the corresponding period of fiscal 2009-10.
 
BBN/SI/AD-10Feb11-7:54 pm (BST)