Gold Price in Bangladesh Swings Twice in a Week as Bajus Cuts, Then Hikes Rates

A Cut, Then a Reversal

Bangladesh's jewelers spent the first ten days of October changing their minds about gold twice. On October 5, the Bangladesh Jewellers Association, known locally as Bajus, cut the price of 22-carat gold by Tk1,691 per bhori, bringing it down to Tk2,29,081. Four days later, on October 9, the same trade body reversed course entirely, raising the price by Tk2,216 per bhori to Tk2,31,297, more than erasing the earlier cut. By Saturday, October 10, the rate held steady at that higher level, according to live pricing data tracked by Probashir Diganta, a platform that publishes Bajus's daily bhori rates.

For anyone buying or selling gold in Dhaka's jewelry markets this week, the back and forth meant the difference between a modest discount and a meaningful markup within a matter of days. A bhori, the standard unit used in South Asian gold trading, equals 11.664 grams, slightly less than half a troy ounce. The price swings applied across the board, touching not just 22-carat gold but the 21-carat, 18-carat and traditional sonaton grades that Bangladeshi buyers also use for everyday jewelry purchases.

The Numbers Behind the Swing

The table below lays out how each grade moved over the first ten days of October, based on Bajus notifications and the daily rate data gathered from Probashir Diganta's pricing pages.

Gold grade	Oct 4 (before cut)	Oct 5 to 8 (after cut)	Oct 9 to 10 (after hike)
22-carat	Tk2,30,772	Tk2,29,081	Tk2,31,297
21-carat	Tk2,20,391	Tk2,18,817	Tk2,20,917
18-carat	Tk1,89,248	Tk1,87,907	Tk1,89,715
Traditional (Sonaton)	Tk1,54,606	Tk1,53,498	Tk1,54,956

All figures are per bhori and include VAT, the standard way Bajus quotes its rates to the public. Making charges, which jewelers add separately depending on design and workmanship, are not included in any of these figures.

Ninety Revisions and Counting

What looks like unusual volatility is, by now, simply how the Bangladeshi gold market behaves. Bajus had already revised its rates 92 times in the first seven months of 2026 alone, by its own count reported in July, a mix of 44 increases, 47 decreases and one VAT related adjustment. That works out to roughly one change every two days over that stretch, a pace that has not let up heading into October. Each adjustment, however small, ripples through thousands of transactions a day in a country where gold remains a default store of value for weddings, dowries and family savings alike.

Bajus has consistently framed each move, up or down, as a response to shifts in the price of pure, unworked gold, locally called tejabi gold, in the domestic market. That explanation is technically accurate but something of a tautology: tejabi gold prices themselves track the international bullion market and the taka's exchange rate against the dollar, since Bangladesh imports virtually all the raw gold its jewelers work with. When the dollar strengthens or global gold prices climb, as they have repeatedly through 2026 on a mix of safe haven demand and expectations of further interest rate cuts in major economies, the adjustment eventually shows up at the shop counter in Dhaka's Tanti Bazar or Chattogram's Johuree Lane.

Still Below the Year's Peak

Even after Friday's increase, Saturday's price is far from a new high. Pricing data compiled by Al-Amin Jewellers shows the 22-carat rate has ranged between Tk1,93,809 and Tk2,86,001 per bhori over the past twelve months, meaning the current Tk2,31,297 sits comfortably below the year's ceiling. The same data puts the year on year increase at roughly 10.6 percent, a reminder that despite the week's reversal, gold has still gotten meaningfully more expensive in Bangladesh than it was in October 2025.

That gap between the current price and the year's high is itself informative. It suggests the sharpest spike in Bangladesh's gold market happened earlier in 2026, likely tied to one of the international rallies that pushed bullion to repeated records over the year, and that prices have since settled into a lower, though still elevated and volatile, range. Jewelers who spoke to reporters covering the sector's near monthly price resets have described planning inventory purchases around short windows when rates dip, precisely the kind of calculation this week's swing would have forced on anyone holding stock through October 5 and then watching it reverse by October 9.

A Hedge Against a Shaky Taka

The timing of gold's climb back above Tk2.31 lakh per bhori lands just as BD Financial Review reported that Bangladesh's currency itself has become a source of uncertainty. The taka strengthened against the dollar through July and August even as domestic inflation ran close to 9 percent, pushing Bangladesh Bank's Real Effective Exchange Rate index to 105.37, a level the central bank's own officials have described as overvalued. An overvalued, uncertain currency tends to push savers toward hard assets like gold as insurance, and Bangladesh's gold market has historically seen demand pick up whenever confidence in the taka wavers, whether from inflation, political uncertainty or currency policy debates. That dynamic offers one plausible demand side explanation for why gold buyers did not rush away even as prices climbed on Friday.

Looking Ahead to Wedding Season

Demand patterns could keep the volatility going. Bangladesh's wedding season traditionally runs from November through February, after the Durga Puja and Eid calendars clear and cooler weather makes outdoor ceremonies easier to plan, and gold jewelry remains a near universal part of dowries and bridal sets across the country. Retailers in Dhaka's Tanti Bazar and Chattogram's Johuree Lane typically see a seasonal uptick in footfall through these months regardless of where the headline rate sits, which could complicate Bajus's already frequent recalibration if global bullion prices keep moving as sharply as they have through 2026. Buyers hoping to time a purchase around a dip, as this week's brief cut offered, may find the window narrower than they expect.

For now, Bajus's Saturday rate of Tk2,31,297 per bhori for 22-carat gold stands as the reference point for Dhaka's jewelry trade, at least until the next notification arrives. Given the pace this year has already set, that could be a matter of days rather than weeks.