Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)– The central bank of Bangladesh started intervening in the foreign exchange market through selling the US dollar to the commercial banks after more than one year aiming to keep the market stable, officials said on Tuesday.
As part of the intervention, the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country’s central bank, sold US$24 million at the market directly to four commercial banks on the day to meet the growing demand for the greenback.
The US dollar was quoted at BDT 69.9350-BDT 70.1000 in the inter-bank foreign exchange market on the day against BDT 69.8300-BDT 69.9000 of the previous working day, according to the central statistics.
“We may continue such intervention to keep the forex market stable,” a BB senior official said, adding that the central bank is monitoring the country’s overall forex market situation closely.
The BB’s latest move came after depreciating the local currency marginally by 0.54 per cent against the US dollar following a rise in demand for the greenback in the market.
The BDT has been depreciating from the first working day of the last week mainly due to increasing the demand for greenback in the inter-bank market for settlement of import payments.
The US dollar was traded at BDT 69.6300-BDT 69.6500 on September 19 in the inter-bank foreign exchange market, treasury officials confirmed.
BBN/SI/ANS-28Sept10-8:57 pm (BST)
