The central bank has strengthened its foreign currency support to the commercial banks to settle their import payment obligations particularly for petroleum products, officials said.
As part of the move, Bangladesh Bank (BB) sold US$ 85 million directly to the commercial banks this week to meet the growing demand for the greenback in the market.
On Thursday, $35 million was sold to four commercial banks, while $50 million was provided to both public and private commercial banks on Monday, according to the officials.
"We've extended our foreign currency liquidity support to the banks for making import payment bills against petroleum products and liquefied natural gas (LNG)," a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) told the FE while explaining higher sales of the greenback during the week.
He also said the central bank would continue providing such foreign currency support to the banks in line with the market requirement.
The central bank has already resumed selling of the US dollar to banks directly in the last week of March after more than one month interval to keep the country's foreign exchange market stable.
Talking to the FE, a treasury head of a leading private commercial bank said the BB is providing foreign currency support to banks for offsetting extra pressure on the market, caused by lower export earnings along with falling trend of inward remittances following the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. The central bank so far sold $686 million to the banks particularly public ones during this fiscal year (FY) 2019-20 to meet the growing demand for the US currency in the market, the BB data showed.
The private banker expects that such foreign currency assistance of the BB will continue to help in keeping the foreign exchange market stable.
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