The exchange rate for a United States dollar to Tk 112 in the kerb market on Tuesday, witnessing the worst-ever slide of Bangladeshi currency.
Traders of the kerb market, where out-of-bank cash dollars are sold and bought, said that the exchange rate of dollars increased sharply in the last couple of weeks.
Abdul Malek, owner of an exchange house in Motijheel, said that 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.
Private banks sold dollars at Tk103 to 104 on Tuesday for foreign trading and opening LCs for imports.
On July 26, 2021, 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.
They said that syndicates involved in dollar business were partly to blame for the chaos.
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.
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 be stablised.
