Despite a severe dollar crisis in the country’s banking sector, the issuance of letters of credit (LC) for imports experienced a significant surge in October, reaching US $ 5.42 billion.
Monthly LC openings had plummeted to around the US $ 4 billion mark at the close of the financial year 2022-23, a stark decline from the approximately US $ 9 billion recorded in the first month of FY ’23.
However, this trend began to reverse at the outset of the current financial year, 2023-24.
In FY ’24, the LC openings were US $ 5.23 billion in September, US $ 6.1 billion in August, and US $ 4.37 billion in July.
By comparison, the figure for October 2022 stood at US $ 4.74 billion, as per data from Bangladesh Bank.
Apart from heightened Government imports, LC openings for the import of capital machinery also experienced growth during the reporting period, reports claimed.
Over the past 27 months, the central bank has sold more than US $ 25 billion from its foreign currency reserves. This includes US $ 4.25 billion allocated to banks during July-October of the current financial year, US $ 13.5 billion in FY ’23, and US $ 7.62 billion in FY ’22.
