DHAKA, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- Bangladesh is on track to end a U.S. dollar crisis soon in the country, Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Abdur Rouf Talukder said here Saturday.
"Dollar market stability depends virtually on our inflows of remittances, export incomes and payments of import bills," said the BB chief while attending the Annual Banking Conference 2022 at the Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management (BIBM) premises on Saturday.
Dollar prices remain stable when there's a balance between the inflows and outflows, Talukder said and added they are investigating whether several banks are making brisk business from the volatile forex market in the country in recent months.
The U.S. dollar reached an all-time high against the Bangladeshi taka earlier this month, soaring to 115 taka per dollar for the first time in the country's kerb market trading history.
On July 26 this year, the greenback reached 112 taka in the country's open market for the first time. Subsequently, the rate hovered around 106 taka at the kerb market as authorities launched raids on money exchanger houses and BB intensified its monitoring.
Increasing imports and a widening trade deficit were cited as the most possible reasons for taka depreciation in recent months.
A BB official told Xinhua earlier that the import bill in the last fiscal year 2021-22 increased to over 82 billion U.S. dollars, fueling a persistent increase in the country's trade deficit.
Bangladesh's trade deficit ballooned to a record level of over 33 billion U.S. dollars in the fiscal year 2021-22 which ended June 30 on the back of increased imports, showed the latest central bank data.
According to the central bank data, the country's import payment was 82.50 billion dollars, up 35.95 percent in the last fiscal year, while earnings from exports stood at 49.25 billion dollars, up 33.45 percent, during the same period. ■