Taka weakens against the dollar again
Business Report :
The taka weakened against the US dollar for the third time in the ongoing fiscal FY24, as Bangladesh Bank raised prices of the greenback by Tk0.50 to Tk109.50 regarding selling from forex reserves.
The price of a dollar was Tk109 in July this year.
Over the last one year, the country experienced a currency devaluation of Tk15.05, equivalent to 16%, from Tk94.45 per dollar a year ago.
The Bangladesh Foreign Exchange Dealers Association (BAFEDA) and the Association of Bankers, Bangladesh (ABB) adjusted the exchange rate of the US dollar on Monday.
As per an announcement by the two organizations, the new interbank dollar rate was Tk109.5, which was Tk109 earlier.
Exporters are currently getting Tk108.50 per dollar, while the rate is Tk109 for remittances and Tk109.5 for import settlement. According to the central bank, $1.15 billion has been sold from reserves since July of FY24.
In FY23, $13.58 billion was sold from reserves to alleviate the dollar crunch.
Due to these reasons, the gross reserves decreased from $39.60 billion at the end of July last year to $29.72 billion on Monday.
According to the International Monetary Fund’s guidelines, the new gross reserve of the central bank is $23.30 billion.
In the first week of July this year, Bangladesh faced its steepest currency devaluation in history, with the taka plummeting by Tk2.85 in a single day as the Bangladesh Bank started to sell the US dollar at an interbank rate of Tk108.85 from its forex reserves.
Then the exchange rate was increased to Tk109 per dollar.
In September last year, the Bangladesh Bank instructed Bafeda to set different rates for export, import, and remittance to control the rapid increase in dollar prices.
Multiple exchange rates were introduced as the dollar rate jumped to Tk115, causing chaos in the forex market.
The rate for selling dollars from the reserves was significantly lower than other market rates, prompting the Bangladesh Bank to initiate a faster devaluation to reduce the gap between the reserve selling rate and the market rate.
