Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)– Bangladesh Taka (BDT) has shown resilience to recent depreciation against the US dollar compared to other South Asian major currencies because of lower import payments, officials said.
The local currency depreciated by 6.44 per cent against the greenback from December 1, 2011 to June 12 while Indian Rupee (INR) devalued by 9.07 per cent against the US dollar, the central bank said in a report.
Besides, Pakistan Rupee (PKR) and Sri Lankan Rupee (LKR) depreciated by 6.17 per cent and 16.21 per cent respectively against the US dollar during the period under review.
The BDT depreciated by 6.50 per cent against the US dollar in January 2 last mainly due to higher demand for the greenback for settling the import bills, particularly of fuel oil.
Such deprecating trend continued until February 1 when the US dollar was quoted at BDT 84.40 in the inter-bank foreign exchange market, the central bank said.
“The local currency has started appreciating against the US dollar since the first week of February after announcement of the monetary policy by the central bank,” a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) said.
Earlier, on January 26, the BB unveiled a ‘restrained’ monetary policy, aiming to bring down inflation to a single digit by June through discouraging credit flow to unproductive sectors.
The central bank official also said steady growth of remittance from wage earners abroad and rising trend of export proceeds realization have also contributed to regain the exchange rate of the BDT against the US currency.
The BDT was quite stable since March 1 compared to other major South Asian currencies as the central bank has strengthened its monitoring and supervision to keep the market stable, the central banker added.
“We expect that the existing stable trend of the local currency against the greenback will continue until September this calendar year,” the BB official said without elaborating.
On the other hand, the exchange of the US dollar gained slightly against the BDT for BC (bills for collection) selling to open letters of credit (LCs) against imports in recent days.
“The rate of the US dollar for BC selling rose to BDT 82.40 on Tuesday from BDT 82.25 a week ago,” a senior treasury official of a commercial bank told MLB in Dhaka.
The rate of the US dollar for BC selling increased slightly as some commercial banks are offering better exchange rate for their overseas exchange houses to receive more inward remittance, the banker said while explaining the main reason of fluctuation of the BC selling rate.
“The banks want to increase the inflow of remittance this month that would help the country to receive more than US$13 billion remittance by the end of current fiscal year,” he said without elaborating.
The country received $11.767 billion during the July-May period of the FY’12, registering a 10.89 per cent growth over the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.
BBN/SSR/AD-13June12-11:10 am (BST)
