Taka falls again

The currency of Bangladesh has depreciated further against the US dollar, hitting Tk 92.50 on the interbank platform yesterday.

The exchange rate stood at Tk 92 per dollar on Monday before falling by Tk 0.50 on Tuesday, the 13th decline alone this year.

In order to prevent a massive fall of the taka, the Bangladesh Bank injected $105 million into the market yesterday to help banks settle import bills, a central bank official said.

The central bank supplied a record $6.79 billion to the market between July 1 and June 13 this fiscal year. Still, the foreign exchange market is facing a shortage of US dollars due to the soaring import payments and the declining trend of remittance.

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. This resulted in a record trade deficit -- the gap between exports and imports -- of $27.56 billion, up 53 per cent year-on-year.

The remittance, the cheapest source of foreign currencies for Bangladesh, fell 16 per cent year-on-year to $19.2 billion in the first 11 months of the fiscal year.

All these led to the decline in the foreign exchange reserves to $41.7 billion on June 1, which was $46.15 billion on December 31.