STAR BUSINESS REPORT

Bangladesh Bank Governor Ahsan H Mansur advised remitters not to believe in speculation, stating that the exchange rate would be stable from now on.

He also warned foreign exchange aggregators not to hold on to foreign currency, reminding them that they cannot hold onto it for more than five days.

“The market will fix the rate and we are working as a facilitator for the market,” he said yesterday while addressing as the chief guest of a roundtable on the country’s foreign exchange market and the central bank’s recent decision to go for a market-based exchange rate.

National business newspaper Daily Bonik Barta organised the roundtable.

“We were waiting for macroeconomic stability before allowing the exchange rate to be determined by market forces. And this was the right time,” Mansur said.

However, in terms of macroeconomic stability, the most important topic remains reining in inflation, which has hovered above nine percent since March of 2023.

“Right now, the most important thing for us is to bring down inflation to 3 or 4 percent. I believe by August, inflation will come down to around 7 percent. By the end of the year, I think it will come down to around 5 percent,” he said.

Mansur also acknowledged that there has been a lot of discussion about making the exchange rate market-based, something the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international organisations have been suggesting for a long time.

“But the question was: when would we do it? This has been under discussion for a long time.”

He added that many people believed the interim government wouldn’t be able to meet the IMF’s requirements. “It’s true that the previous government couldn’t meet any of them. But we have met all of them,” he said.

He also said he was against restricting imports of luxury goods.