Frantic buying, syndicate, rising import price blamed
The exchange rate of US dollar jumped to Tk 112 in the unofficial (kerb) market on Tuesday prompting the worst-ever slide of the Bangladeshi currency against greenback.
Traders of the kerb market, where out-of-bank cash dollars are sold and bought, told The News Times that in the last couple of weeks, the exchange rate of dollar increased drastically.
Abdul Malek, owner of an exchange house in Motijheel said they sold a dollar for Tk 105 on Monday.
But it jumped up to Tk 112 on Tuesday, the highest single day increase of the greenback ever in the country, he said.
Amin Uddin Bhuiyan, director of Eastern Money Exchange, said the price of the dollar has been changing by the hour since Tuesday morning.
Some exchangers even said that they had to turn away customers because of the shortfall.
The Private banks sold dollars at Tk103 to 104 on Tuesday for foreign trading and opening LCs for imports.
On July 26 last year, the American greenback traded at Tk 84.80, meaning there has been an 11.67 per cent loss in the value of the local currency in a year.
The kerb market traders said that there had been a surge of demand in US dollars, compared to the short supply.
As exports and falling remittances have not been enough to fill in the gap created by the imports amid global price rises triggered by the Russia-Ukraine war, the taka has been losing its value against the dollar.
Usually, as soon as Hajj ends, the taka-dollar exchange rate eases in favour of taka as pilgrims returning from Saudi Arabia offload the greenbacks in their possession, mostly in the kerb market to get a better price.
The surge happened as a large number of buyers, including tourists, small importers, students going abroad for studies and patients bound for treatment frantically looked for the greenback at the kerb market in Motijheel.
Syndicates involved in dollar business were also blamed partly for the chaos.
Despite the BB’s move to sell the dollar and relax policies to increase the inflow of forex in the country since June this year, the dollar market is yet to stabilize.
