Written by The Banking Post
Bangladesh Bank’s (BB) intervention to stabilise the foreign exchange (forex) market continues as the central bank purchased US$313 million more from commercial banks through an auction on Tuesday.
With the latest purchase, the banking regulator has so far been bought a total of $484 million from the market in two biddings.
The BB’s second intervention came in the wake of falling trend in US dollar-Taka pricing even after the central bank’s intervention to purchase $171 million from 18 banks just couple of days earlier.
“We’ve intervened in the market again to keep the exchange rate stable. We bought $313 million from 22 commercial lenders today,” a BB official said.
The official also said the central bank will consider intervening in the market whenever necessary for ensuring stability in the exchange rate in this free-floating regime.
The central bank accepted bids amounting to $313 million from 22 commercial banks at a maximum cut-off rate of Tk 121.50 per dollar on Tuesday, according to BB officials.
However, local currency appreciated slightly against the US currency on Tuesday.
The reference rate of the US dollar against the BDT fell to Tk 121.1108 per dollar at 5:00 pm on the day, down from Tk 121.1375 at the same time on the previous working day, according to the central bank’s latest data.
However, the exchange rate of the greenback maintains a falling trend against the BDT recently following higher inflow of remittances along with export earnings, according to market operators.
They also said lower demand for imports as well as the ongoing tariff negotiations with the United States also pushed down the exchange rate of the greenback on the local market.
