The Bangladesh Foreign Exchange Dealers Association (Bafeda) and the Association of Bankers, Bangladesh (ABB) urged Bangladesh Bank to increase the supply of dollars to ease the existing foreign currency crisis caused by soaring trade deficit and declining remittance.
In a meeting with the central bank Governor Fazle Kabir on Sunday, the banks agreed to work together to help the central bank increase dollar supply, which, they said, will ultimately bring down its price to the normal level.
Participants said that reducing the demand for the dollar was not possible in the current situation.
"We discussed the easy ways of recompiling dollars of nostro accounts [that local banks hold in foreign currency in other banks] and ways to use dollars from offshore banking in onshore banking by formulating a policy," said a participant, requesting anonymity.
On Sunday, the interbank dollar exchange rate was at Tk92; which was Tk91.95 last Monday.
The foreign exchange reserves stood at $41.7 billion last week. It was $48 billion in August last year. The central bank has so far sold about $7 billion dollars to banks in the ongoing fiscal year.
The country's trade deficit hit a record $27.56 billion high in the first 10 months of the ongoing fiscal year 2021-22, with high import expenditures and low export earnings, according to the central bank.
Meanwhile, money sent home by expatriate Bangladeshis fell by around 13% year-on-year to $1.88 billion in May, it also said.
The amount was $2.01 billion in April this year, which means the May remittance inflow fell by 6.23% from the previous month.
In the 11 months of the current fiscal, the country received $19.19 billion as remittances, 15.94% lower year-on-year.