September 15, 2006	Friday	Sha'aban 21, 1427

DHAKA, Sept 14: The US dollar has continued to lose ground to the local currency, taka, shedding about two per cent of its value in past two weeks. The relevant data from Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of Bangladesh, shows that taka moved up to its six-month high against the greenback last week and has been maintaining the momentum in the current week as well.

Taka gained strength on the back of a buoyant export and an increased inflow of wage earners' remittance before the month of Ramazan and the coming Eidul Fitr, said banking sources.

Considerable decline in import related demand for foreign exchange has been reflected in the inter-bank exchange market.

The data showed that inter-bank average buying and selling rates stood at Tk68.45 and Tk68.96, respectively, on Wednesday.

Taka has appreciated by more than two per cent just in the last two weeks, showed an analysis of Citibank NA.

In the last week, Citibank’s average selling rate against dollar was Tk69.79, which fell to Tk68.50 on Wednesday.

In fact, exchange rate of taka-dollar fell to Tk69.60 at the end of July from Tk69.67 at the end of June.

The central bank estimation showed that taka appreciated by 0.10 per cent in July 2006 over June 2006.

And in the last fiscal year, taka depreciated by 8.6 per cent. Meanwhile, the central bank has continued mopping up liquidities from the money market.

On Wednesday, Bangladesh Bank mopped up Tk12,630 million through the overnight reverse repo auction.

Twenty bids of one-day tenor were accepted at annual rate of 6.5 per cent. On Tuesday, central bank mopped up Tk13,390 million from the money market.