New Age
Staff Correspondent | 20 July 2020
The Bangladesh Bank injected another Tk 2,290 crore in the country’s banking sector in 19 days of July through purchasing US dollars as the banks were flooded with greenbacks.
An official of the central bank told New Age that the central bank had no alternative but to purchase dollars against the backdrop of a heavy inflow of remittance ahead of Eid-ul-Azha, one of the largest religious festivals of the Muslims.
Unless the greenbacks were purchased by the central bank, the value of the taka would appreciate against the dollar and that would be a matter of discomfort for the country’s exporters.
The central bank purchased greenbacks worth $270 million from the banks in July 1-19, the official said.
Although the migrants in many destinations were facing joblessness due to the coronavirus pandemic, the inflow of remittance in May and June marked a significant turnaround after the downward trend in the first four months of the year.
In the first 16 days of July, the inflow of remittance increased to $1,360 million as the expatriates continued to support their kith and kin even at their hard times while some of the expatriates sent money as part of their preparations to come back to the country due to their joblessness.
In June, the country received remittance worth $1,832.63 million.
Bankers said that the inflow of remittance might exceed $2 billion in July if the trend continued in the last two weeks of July.
The country’s reserve that struck the $36-billion mark for the first time on July 2, after falling short of the mark for few days due to the $700 million in payments to the Asian Clearing Union, again rebounded to $36.1 billion on Sunday.
Even though the central bank continued purchasing the greenbacks that had been piling up due to the import fall and heavy inflow of remittance, the exchange rate of the US dollar dropped a bit to Tk 84.8.
To check the local currency appreciation, the BB had purchased greenbacks worth around $870 million from the banking system in the fiscal year 2019-2020.
The BB injected $835 million into the banking sector before the pandemic began in the country in March.
