Home ›› 14 Aug 2022 ›› Front
The Bangladesh Bank is going to sit with the Association of Bankers, Bangladesh (ABB) and Bangladesh Foreign Exchange Dealers’ Association (BAFEDA) today to discuss the ongoing volatility in foreign exchange market.
BB Governor Abdur Rouf Talukder will preside over the meeting while ABB Chairman and BRAC Bank Managing Director Selim RF Hussain and BAFEDA Chairman and Sonali Bank MD and Chief Executive Officer Md Ataur Rahman Prodhan will lead their respective organisations.
The meeting will be held at 3:00pm at the headquarters of the central bank.
A number of initiatives are likely to come from the meeting for cooling off the forex market, said BB officials.
Although the central bank has already taken several initiatives to cool down the foreign exchange market, those are yet to be fruitful.
The rate of US dollar hit a record high at Tk 118 to Tk 120 in the kerb market on Thursday. Importers also spent at Tk 110 to Tk 113 per dollar to pay their import bills despite a series of initiatives by the central bank.
On August 8, the banking regulator asked six banks to transfer the heads of their treasury departments to human resource departments due to their alleged involvement in destabilising the country’s foreign exchange market.
On Thursday, the Bangladesh Bank took a policy decision that the regulator is granting permission to non-authorised dealer banks for buying and selling foreign currency in a bid to curb the dominance of illegal money changers.
Earlier in May this year, the central bank sat with the two organisations while BAFEDA submitted a six-point proposal to the central bank for stabilising the country’s forex market.
Following the meeting, the Bangladesh Bank fixed the inter-bank exchange rate, which put further pressure on the forex market. Later, the banking regulator backtracked from the decision and allowed dollar free float.
However, the BB still fixes the inter-bank exchange rate, but the move is rarely able to stabilise the forex market.
On Thursday, the inter-bank exchange rate stood at Tk 95 per dollar with the Bangladeshi currency devalued over 10 per cent this year.
