Bangladesh Bank sells more dollars to support taka

Bangladesh Bank injected $42 million into the market yesterday to help banks settle import bills and prevent a fall of the taka, said a central bank official.

The central bank supplied a record $7.47 billion to the market between July 1 and June 28 this fiscal year.

Still, the inter-bank exchange rate set by the central bank has been unable to tame the ongoing volatility due to the inadequate supply of the greenback.

The foreign exchange market is facing a shortage of US dollars due to soaring import payments and declining remittance inflows.

The country's import payments have shot up since the end of last year because of the rising prices of commodities in the global market.

Between July and April, imports went up by 41 per cent to $68.66 billion, while exports grew 35 per cent to $41 billion.

All these led to the decline in the foreign exchange reserves to $41.7 billion as of June 28, whereas it was $46.15 billion on December 31.