Al Amin :
The central bank has injected around $2.57 billion in the first two months of the current fiscal year (2022-23) to ease dollar crisis as well as bringing stability in the country’s volatile foreign exchange market.
This is the first time that such a big amount of dollar was sold by the central bank and if the trend continues, the amount of sold dollar may stand at around $15 billion at the end of the year. The central bank injected $ 7.67 billion in last fiscal year.
Some $256.90 crore or $257 billion dollar has been sold from foreign exchange reserve since July 1 to September 1 of the current fiscal year to the commercial banks as part of the BB’s ongoing liquidity support, according to latest data of the central bank.
The Bangladesh Bank has strengthened its foreign-currency support to the scheduled banks in recent months to handle volatility in the forex market, officials said.
“We are directly providing such liquidity support to the banks in a bigger way for settling import-payment obligations, particularly for importing six essential items, including fuel-oils,” said senior official the BB.
Market operators, however, said the demand for the greenback has been gradually increasing – following the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war along with an economic rebound from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Rise in commodities’ prices, including fuel-oils, in the global market also pushed up import payment obligations in recent months, they explained.
The foreign exchange reserve was reduced to $39.5 billion till on Thursday, despite increase in remittance inflow, the main source of reserve.
The reserve may go below $38 billion after the payment of Asian Clearing Union (ACU) of July-August this week, the BB officials said.
The reserve was reduced to bellow $40 billion after the ACU payment in July and it fluctuated between $39.80 billion to $40 till July 20. But the end of the July, it declined to $39.5 billion.
However, robust remittance, export earnings and decline in import payments are showing hopes.
Merchandise exports posted a whopping 38.09 per cent year-on-year growth in August to bring home $4.67 billion and the export earnings totalled $8.59 billion in last two months (July-August), registering a 25.31 per cent year-on-year growth.
In August, remittances stood at $2.03 billion, up 12.6 per cent year-on-year although the inflow was three per cent lower than the receipts of July, according to the BB data.
On the other hand, import payments, as calculated through the settlement of letters of credit (LCs), were $6.92 billion in August, down 9.6 per cent from a month ago, although the amount was still 14.2 per cent higher than what was a year ago.
The market insiders said that the foreign exchange market is still facing pressure, but the stress will peter out if the ongoing trend of imports and remittances continues in the next couple of months.
“The outflow of the dollar may decrease soon, which will have a positive impact on the external sector after one or two months,” said Syed Mahbubur Rahman, Managing Director of Mutual Trust Bank.
The local currency is maintaining a depreciating trend – mainly due to higher outflow of foreign exchange – following a hefty growth in import payment amid global price rise, compared to the inflow in the last few months.
