Banks in Bangladesh have been fixing different prices for buying and selling US dollars for a long time. However, after finally moving away from that system, a bargaining system has been implemented in the case of buying and selling dollars. However, this one-price system of the dollar has been introduced in accordance with the conditions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Henceforth, buying dollar of foreign earnings and dollars of export earnings will be the same price. On the other hand, in case of dollar sale, the price will be another. But everyone will sell dollars at the same price. One bank will sell dollars to another bank at that price, Bangladesh Bank will also sell dollars from the reserve at that price.
This system has been started since yesterday Sunday. However, as the international market is closed on Sunday, there is usually very little foreign currency trading on that day. For this reason, a dollar rate is fully effective from Monday.
The official price of the dollar has increased since yesterday. According to the new decision, the price of buying a dollar of export income of goods or services and a dollar of expatriate income has become 109 taka 50 paisa. Earlier, banks officially paid 109 taka to expatriates and 108 taka 50 paisa to exporters for every dollar.
On the other hand, banks will now sell dollars to importers at Tk 110. Earlier, banks used to sell 109 rupees to importers at 50 paise per dollar to meet import liabilities.
Who is responsible?
Bangladesh Foreign Exchange Dealers Association (BAFEDA) and Association of Bankers, Bangladesh (ABB) have been fixing the price of this currency from time to time depending on the supply and demand of dollar. These two associations are mainly commercial banking organizations. But now that there will be a price for selling the dollar, the question is how this price will be determined, and who will oversee it.
Buffeta and ABB have been setting the price of the dollar for a long time and will continue to do so. However, the banks have to inform the central bank at what price they are buying and selling dollars every day. Again, central bank officials collect information about the price of the dollar from the field. As a result, the central bank has a mechanism to monitor the value of the dollar.
An official of the relevant department of Bangladesh Bank told Prothom Alo that the dollar price is regularly monitored in the market. However, action is not always taken in terms of supervision. Actions are taken only after the approval of the Governor. Banks are regularly advised to understand and transact within the rules. Time will tell how effective this price will be.
An official of the treasury department of a private bank told Prothom Alo that the price is determined based on the availability of dollars. Many times a formal price is written in the documents, but in reality it takes more.
Because, buying dollars costs more. According to him, this system of determining the price of the dollar should be removed in order to completely overcome the foreign exchange crisis. Otherwise, the decision to increase the price will have to be made every few days and it can never be stopped.
At the end of last January, the International Monetary Fund approved a loan of 4.7 billion dollars for Bangladesh. One of the conditions of that loan was to enforce a dollar rate. That is, the bank will buy dollars at one price, and for whatever purpose it is sold, the same price will be kept in this case. Earlier there were different prices for buying dollars from expatriate earnings and exports.
