The Bangladesh Bank (BB) will print 1,200 million pieces of currencies and banknotes of various denominations in the next fiscal year (FY), 2018-19, officials said.
The target is up by 5.44 per cent from FY 2017-18.
The revised target was 1138.05 million pieces for the outgoing fiscal year, the officials said.
"The banknotes are being printed to feed the growing demand throughout the next fiscal year," a senior BB official told the FE.
The Security Printing Corporation Bangladesh Ltd. (SPCBL) printed 1016.80 million currencies and banknotes as of May in FY 2017-18, according to the SPCBL data.
Some 9653.24 million other security products (OSPs) will also be printed, up by 10.07 per cent from the revised target of FY 2017-18.
Some 7986.92 million OSPs, out of revised target 8770.17 million, were printed as of May of the outgoing fiscal, the data showed.
In FY 1988-89, only 271.95 million currency and banknotes were printed, according to the central bank data.
On the other hand, the demand for chequebooks and other security products is up, according to Financial Institutions Division (FID).
The production of currency and banknotes would increase year on year, a source in the SPCBL said.
The cost of printing notes has increased significantly over the years for a rise in security features and import of costly materials, including paper.
This has also been due to a larger volume of banknotes being printed annually, the source added.
The SPCBL prints chequebooks of different state-run and private commercial banks.
The production of banknotes is more expensive now as they contain more security features than those of the older ones, the source mentioned.
The BB earlier gave the printing press Tk 11.50 billion to buy machinery to increase its capacity, according to the data available earlier.
The SPCBL installed some machines to increase its capacity to print banknotes, chequebooks, OSPs and other security-related printing materials.
Sheikh Azizul Haque, managing director of the SPCBL, was not available for comment.
