Bangladesh Exchange Rate Assignment
A brief history of Exchange rate of Bangladesh
Since Bangladesh was the part of Pakistan called East Pakistan, shared the same currency and trade-policy history as the rest of Pakistan until the liberation of Bangladesh. Bangladeshi taka was created on January 1 1972. Pakistan rupees in circulation remained legal tender until replaced by the taka 1:1 beginning March 4 1972.
The taka was set at par with the Indian rupee, and fixed to sterling at Tk 18.9677, or Tk 7.2797 to the United States dollar. The path followed by the taka was determined partly by the initial value chosen for the new currency in 1972. Given the devastation experienced by the Bangladesh economy from natural disaster, civil war and war in 1969-1971, the initial value chosen for the taka on par with the Indian rupee was in all likelihood unrealistic, even more so to the extent the Indian rupee was itself nominally overvalued at the time.
In that time, the principal fact about official exchange-rate policy in Bangladesh has had to do with overseas workers’ remittances far exceeding any single sector of merchandise exports as a support for the balance of payments. A multiple exchange-rate system prevailed with a secondary market as an incentive for overseas workers to remit through official channels instead of at parallel or “hundi” market-rates, the spread between the parallel and official channels being exceptionally high for Bangladesh compared to India and Pakistan. IMF technical studies laid the groundwork for abolishment of the multiple exchange-rate practice and the unification of exchange-rates, which was accomplished on March 31 1992.
The path of the official taka is informative as a measure of nominal overvaluation. Since August 1979, the official taka has been pegged within margins to a currency-weighted basket. The taka was adjusted as many as 20 times between October 1980 and January 1982, the official rate being reduced to Tk. 38.4 to sterling or Tk.20.4 per United States
Since Bangladesh was the part of Pakistan called East Pakistan, shared the same currency and trade-policy history as the rest of Pakistan until the liberation of Bangladesh. Bangladeshi taka was created on January 1 1972. Pakistan rupees in circulation remained legal tender until replaced by the taka 1:1 beginning March 4 1972.
The taka was set at par with the Indian rupee, and fixed to sterling at Tk 18.9677, or Tk 7.2797 to the United States dollar. The path followed by the taka was determined partly by the initial value chosen for the new currency in 1972. Given the devastation experienced by the Bangladesh economy from natural disaster, civil war and war in 1969-1971, the initial value chosen for the taka on par with the Indian rupee was in all likelihood unrealistic, even more so to the extent the Indian rupee was itself nominally overvalued at the time.
In that time, the principal fact about official exchange-rate policy in Bangladesh has had to do with overseas workers’ remittances far exceeding any single sector of merchandise exports as a support for the balance of payments. A multiple exchange-rate system prevailed with a secondary market as an incentive for overseas workers to remit through official channels instead of at parallel or “hundi” market-rates, the spread between the parallel and official channels being exceptionally high for Bangladesh compared to India and Pakistan. IMF technical studies laid the groundwork for abolishment of the multiple exchange-rate practice and the unification of exchange-rates, which was accomplished on March 31 1992.
The path of the official taka is informative as a measure of nominal overvaluation. Since August 1979, the official taka has been pegged within margins to a currency-weighted basket. The taka was adjusted as many as 20 times between October 1980 and January 1982, the official rate being reduced to Tk. 38.4 to sterling or Tk.20.4 per United States