Bangladesh Bank purchased a record $2.549 billion from the market between July 1 and January 23 of financial year 2012-13 with a view to curbing the depreciation of greenback against the local currency taka, said central bank officials.
According to the BB record, the central bank bought the highest amount of dollar in the first six months and 23 days of this financial year since FY 2004-2005.
It is not possible to collect the data before FY 2004-05 as the information is not available in the BB record book.
BB officials and economist said that the purchase of US dollar by the
central bank would not bring positive impact on the macro-economic situation of the country as the greenback was not being invested in the productive sector.
A BB official told New Age on Wednesday that the central bank had purchased $60 million on the day and $54 million on Tuesday.
The BB bought $496 million in January, $338 million in December
and $731 million in October of this financial year, he said.
The BB data showed that the central bank had purchased $157 million in FY 2011-12, $316.50 million in FY 2010-11 and $2,161 million in FY 2009-10.  
The official said that the BB had taken the initiative to maintain an equilibrium standard rate between the dollar and the taka so that the expatriate Bangladeshis encouraged remitting more greenbacks to their relatives.
The BB data, however, showed that the greenback continued to deprecate against the taka frequently failing the central bank’s effort.
The dollar was quoted at Tk 79.38 to Tk 79.42 in the inter-bank forex market on Wednesday against Tk 79.41 to Tk 79.42 of the previous day and it was quoted Tk 79.75 to Tk 79.80 on January 1, 2013.
The BB also took the measure to purchase dollar in a bid to curb the inflationary pressure by mopping up the dollar from the market and it is providing treasury bonds and treasury bills to the scheduled banks against the dollars’ worth instead of cash liquidity, said the BB official.
He said that the foreign exchange reserve might again cross $13-billion mark at the end of this month due to a continued trend of higher remittance inflow growth and lower import.
The country received $805.37 million as remittance between January 1 and January 18, the BB data showed.
Under the circumstances, the foreign exchange reserve stood at $12.793 billion on Wednesday from $12.767 billion on Tuesday.
Another BB official said the import growth had tumbled significantly in the first five months of FY 2012-13 with a negative growth of capital machinery and industrial raw materials.
The settlement of letters of credit or import payment for capital machinery in July-November posted a negative growth of 28.02 per cent and industrial raw materials a negative 6.31 per cent compared with that of 82.90 per cent and 56.07 per cent growth in July-November in the FY 2011-2012, the BB data showed.
Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies research director Zaid Bakht told New Age that the government should take steps to develop the investment scenario of the country so that the excess dollar could be invested in the productive sector.
‘The current political turmoil and the power shortage continued to hamper the investment sector’, he said.