A drive across the country and abroad to plug the holes began to remedy recent remittance downturn, boosting monthly turnover above US$1.0 billion again in January.
Officials said the turnaround became tangible after a falling trend for consecutive two months as different initiatives, taken by authorities concerned to check inflow of remittances through illegal 'hundi' system, began to work.
"The government as well as the central bank has already taken different measures to revamp the flow of inward remittances shortly," a senior official familiar with the latest initiatives told the FE Wednesday.
As part of the moves, a research group is now working to find out various factors, including the flow of inward remittances using illegal channel, which cause fall in the official receipts of remittances.
"The group is now collecting information relating to inward remittances from different parts of the country," says the official.
Also, he said, two teams are expected to visit Malaysia, Singapore, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) shortly as part of the huge hunt.
The remittances from Bangladeshi nationals working abroad were estimated at $1.01 billion in January, up by $50.71 million over the previous month. In December 2016, the remittance was $958.73 million. It was $951.37 million in November.
The flow of inward remittances fetched $1.15 billion in January 2016.
The inflow of overall remittances dropped by nearly 17 cent in the first seven months of the current fiscal year (FY) against the same period of the last fiscal.
The remittance receipts came down to $7.18 billion during the July-January period of the FY 2016-17 from $8.64 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) data showed.
On the other hand, the central bank is scheduled to meet chief executive officers (CEOs) and managing directors (MDs) of the higher remittance- recipient banks Sunday for stocktaking of the overall situation.
Earlier, the BB had relaxed policy for establishment of drawing arrangement between the overseas exchange houses and the banks operating in Bangladesh to facilitate the inflow of remittances.
Under the relaxations, the amount of security deposit for drawing arrangement came down to US$10,000 from $25,000 while security deposit for Non-Resident Taka (NRT) account got trimmed down to Tk 0.20 million from Tk 0.50 million.
Besides, the BB officials are scheduled to meet with senior officials the Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment on February 09 to discuss the overall situation.
"We expected that the existing trend in inward remittance would continue in the coming months," the official said.
Mentioning different initiatives, BB Governor Fazle Kabir Sunday expressed the hope that the flow of inward remittance would return into the upward trend from the present slowdown within the next two to three months.
Currently, 29 exchange houses are operating across the globe alongside 1140 drawing arrangements set up abroad to expedite the remittance inflow, according to a BB senior official.
The central bank earlier took a series of measures to encourage the expatriate Bangladeshis to send their hard-earned money through the formal banking channel, instead of the illegal "hundi" system, to help boost the country's foreign-exchange reserves.
Currently, most banks are trying to increase the flow of inward remittances from the Middle East, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Italy and the United States.
"We're still serious about increasing the inflow of remittances through official channels to meet our internal foreign-exchange demand," a senior official of a leading commercial bank said.
He also said most of the banks are now trying to establish new contacts with overseas exchange houses so that the migrant workers can find it easy to send money home.
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