Home ›› 11 Jan 2022 ›› Front
The rate of the US dollar against the local currency keeps rising for the last several months, increasing import costs and resulting in extra burdens on importers.
The interbank exchange rate hit Tk 86 per dollar on Sunday for the first time, up from Tk 85.8 on Thursday, as per the latest central bank data. The rate was Tk 84.8 per dollar on January 9 last year.
Importers said import costs had gone up as Taka was being devalued against the dollar, and this trend would negatively impact good prices in the local market.
Mohammad Mustafa Haider, group director of TK Group of Industries, told The Business Post prices of consumer goods would go up further in the local market as import costs had risen drastically due to the increase in the dollar rate.
He said most banks were imposing a higher rate for opening letters of credit by taking advantage of the ongoing dollar shortage.
“Banks are now making quick bucks from importers,” a Chattogram-based industrialist told The Business Post.
“If the regulators, such as the Bangladesh Bank or the finance ministry, do not intervene immediately, industrial products will see price hikes, and the pace of industrialisation will be hampered badly.”
But bankers said the value of the dollar was going up as import payments had rebounded due to the reopening of the country’s economy and businesses.
Import payments stood at $31.16 billion between July and November in 2021, up 54 per cent year-on-year, as per the central bank data.
Former lead economist at the World Bank’s Dhaka office Zahid Hussain said the rising prices of commodities in the global market had pushed up import costs, but import volumes had not increased.
The rise in prices of imported goods in the international market would also affect the domestic market, making it difficult to control the inflation rate, he said.
To tackle the local currency’s devaluation, the central bank started selling dollar to banks in August last year. From August 2021 till now, it sold $2.5 billion to banks.
