Bangladesh Bank has sold US dollar at Tk 101 each to banks for the first time, giving indication that it is likely to devalue the local currency to reflect the market reality.

The central bank sold $89 million to banks on February 1 to enable the financial institutions to clear import bills on behalf their clients, said a BB official, seeking anonymity.

The latest depreciation comes nearly a month after the Bangladesh Bank sold the greenback to banks at Tk 100 early January this year to help settle import payment.

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Let taka depreciate further: economists

In the interbank market, the greenback was traded at Tk 107 each today, reflecting 24.4 per cent loss of value of taka against the US dollar from Tk 86 a year ago.

Like many other countries, Bangladesh's taka has been under pressure against the dollar over the last one year owing to higher import payments than overall receipts from export and remittance.

This forced the central bank to devalue its selling rate of the greenback several times in the last year, which caused the country's foreign exchange reserves to sink from $44.99 billion a year ago to $32.69 billion after the addition of the first instalment of IMF's loan of $427.26 million today.