Remittances fell 4.78 percent year-on-year to $14.59 billion in the just concluded fiscal year as weak oil prices continue to bleed countries hosting the majority of Bangladeshi migrant workers.
This was the sixth time remittances, Bangladesh's most reliable source of foreign funding, went negative since 1975-76, according to Bangladesh Economic Review.
The whole fiscal year's remittances were particularly hurt by the receipts in June when the country received $1.13 billion, the lowest monthly figure since December last year and down 22 percent from the same month a year ago, according to data from Bangladesh Bank.
The June figure is upsetting for the government as it coincided with Ramadan and Eid-ul-Fitr festival, the biggest spending season in the country.
The drop in remittances comes in contrast to the rising number of people going abroad for jobs.
The outflow of migrant workers jumped more than 62 percent year-on-year to 6.84 lakh last fiscal year from a year ago, according to data from the state-run Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training.
Zahid Hussain, lead economist of the World Bank Bangladesh, said the decline in remittances in the last fiscal year appears to be mainly a result of the prolonged decline in oil prices.
The oil price decline, which dropped to its historic low in January this year from its historic high in mid-2014, affected incomes in Gulf Cooperation Council economies, weakening the demand for labour workers.
“To contain the budget deficit, they [GCC countries] reportedly put on hold many public infrastructure projects, thus reducing demand for labour and labor incomes. This has adversely affected the ability to remit on the part of Bangladeshi workers.”
Bangladeshi migrant workers residing in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Libya and Iran together accounted for about 60 percent of the total $15.32 billion sent in by the migrant workers in 2014-15.
Remittances from the UK and the US however showed healthy growth.
Although Bangladesh sends a sizable number of workers every year abroad, remittance income has not kept pace with the increasing number of people going abroad, as they are mostly little trained and lowly educated.
About 91 percent of migrants are blue-collar workers in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Malaysia, Oman, Kuwait, South Korea and Singapore, according to a survey of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics conducted in 2013.
