Forex ceiling goes up for travellers

The central bank has raised the ceiling of foreign currency for Bangladesh nationals allowing them to spend more while travelling abroad.

The Bangladesh Bank (BB) issued a circular in this regard yesterday.

In case of travelling to the Saarc countries and Myanmar, the limit on taking foreign currency has been fixed at $1,500. Earlier the ceiling was $1,000 for travelling by air and $500 by road.

For other countries, a Bangladeshi traveller now can take $5,000, which was $3,000 earlier.

BB officials said the move has been taken as the foreign exchange reserve has crossed a satisfactory $10 billion mark.

The central bank in another circular said it would pay 10 percent of the losses incurred by banks for disbursing farm loans at lower interest rates.

The BB will pay the amount within one month of disbursement, while the rest amount will be paid after necessary review.

>> The Daily Star, December 09,2009