The policies of the country's central bank are not responsible for the existing volatile situation of the foreign exchange markets, but it was created due mainly to price hike of importable essentials and weakness of some new banks in management of assets and liabilities. This clarification was given by the central bank Sunday in a press statement, saying that no policy of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) was responsible for the prevailing situation in the inter-bank foreign exchange market. "The prevailing situation in the foreign exchange market was created due to prices hike of importable products in the global markets and mismanagement for assets-liabilities of some commercial banks," the central bank said in its press statement. Those banks have already opened excessive numbers of letters of credit (LCs) against imports in order to increase their income from fees without taking into account their foreign exchange position, the statement noted. Besides, the BB has asked the banks to improve management of assets and liabilities for ensuring stability in the inter-bank foreign exchange market. It said the central bank was administering the monetary policy to control inflation as part of maintaining macro-economic stability, which resulted in the increase of interest rate on bank loans. The central bank's policy to restrict import of non-essential commodities as well as to maintain import of essential commodities would help reduce the pressure on foreign exchange demand, thus help stabilise the exchange rate. The BB felt that the exchange rate will be stabilised with the reduction of unnecessary pressure on foreign exchange market. However, the banks quoted the dollar rate at Tk 66.95 Sunday unchanged from the previous level despite the short supply of the greenback in the inter-bank foreign exchange market. For opening LCs against imports, the nationalised commercial banks (NCBs) quoted the dollar at Tk 68.97, while the foreign commercial banks (FCBs) and private commercial banks (PCBs) sold the greenback at Tk 69.95-69.70 on the day. Currently, some commercial banks have been facing problem in making their import payments against LCs in recent days due to short supply of the greenback in the inter-bank market.
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