The taka has gained significantly -- by 1.7 percent in a single day -- against the dollar yesterday, owing to intervention by the central bank, said treasury officials of commercial banks.

In a verbal order on Wednesday, Bangladesh Bank put a cap on the US dollar rate at inter-bank exchange rate plus Tk 2, to rein in the depreciation of the taka in the last two weeks, ahead of Ramadan. The inter-bank exchange rate was Tk 80.23 yesterday.

The average bills for collection (BC) selling rate, used for import payments, went down to Tk 82.24 against the dollar yesterday from Tk 83.66 a day earlier, according to data from Bangladesh Foreign Exchange Dealers' Association (BAFEDA).

Citibank NA and Standard Chartered quoted the BC selling rate of a dollar at Tk 82.20 yesterday, down from Tk 84.80 on Wednesday.

“The banks were forced by the central bank to quote a lower price. BB has also assured us of dollars if needed,” said a senior treasury official of a private bank.

The central bank yesterday sold $5 million to Bangladesh Krishi Bank. In April (till yesterday), the central bank injected $101 million into the banking system, according to the BB.

Central bank officials, led by Governor Fazle Kabir, sat with senior officials of the commercial banks to discuss the issue at the BB headquarters yesterday. The governor asked the banks to keep the dollar rate stable.

“We may sit with the treasury officials again on Sunday,” said a senior official of the central bank who attended the meeting.

In just two weeks since April 11, the average BC selling rate went up 3.49 percent to Tk 83.66 against the dollar, he added.

Explaining the sudden hike in the rate of the greenback, bankers said commodity imports have gone up ahead of the month of Ramadan. A declining inflow of remittance and a rise in foreign loan repayments were also responsible for the hike, they added.

Import expenditure in terms of letter of credit (LC) settlement increased 20.46 percent year-on-year to $3.74 billion in March, according to BB data.

The LC opening value surged 20.60 percent to $4.31 billion in the same period.

Officially, Bangladesh has been maintaining a floating exchange rate for over a decade now, but the central bank has to intervene from time to time to control the market.