Remittances from expatriate Bangladeshis exceeded US$ 13 billion in the first 11 months of the current fiscal year (FY), marking a rise of 13.78 per cent over the corresponding period of last fiscal.
The country received $ 13.39 billion in remittances during the July-May period of the FY 2012-13 compared with $ 11.77 billion in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, according to the central bank statistics, released Monday.
"The flow of inward remittances is still at a satisfactory level," Ahsan Ullah, executive director of the Bangladesh Bank (BB), told the FE.
However, Bangladeshi nationals working abroad sent nearly $ 1.08 billion in May last, less by $ 115.01 million than the amount remitted in the previous month. In April 2013, the remittances were $ 1.19 billion, the BB data showed.
The inflow of remittances dropped slightly in the month of May from that of the previous month because of fluctuation, the central banker explained.
"We expected that the flow of inward remittances would pick up in the current month ahead of the holy Ramadan," he said, adding that the total flow of inward remittances may touch $ 14.60 billion by the end of the FY '13.
The latest figure shows that despite decline in overseas jobs, the remittance inflow has maintained a robust growth in continuation of last fiscal's trend, when remittances grew by 10.24 per cent, according to the BB officials.
More than 32,280 job seekers went abroad in April last, down from 37,100 manpower of the previous month of this calendar year, according to the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) statistics.
A total of 607,798 workers went to various job destinations in 2012 which was up from 568,062 in 2011.
The central bank earlier took a series of measures to encourage expatriate Bangladeshis to send their hard-earned money through the formal banking channel instead of the illegal "hundi" system to boost the country's foreign exchange reserves.
The country's foreign exchange reserves stood at $ 14.55 billion Monday, mainly due to the higher inflow of remittances, according to the BB officials.
Four state-run commercial banks and dozens of private commercial banks have stepped up efforts to increase the remittance flow from the Middle East, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Singapore, Italy and the United States.
"Most of banks are now trying to establish new contacts with overseas exchange houses so that the migrant workers can find it easy to send money back home," a senior official of a leading private commercial bank said, adding that some banks are trying to set up their own exchange houses in different parts of the world.
Source: Financial Express
