$2b remittances received in four months of this fiscal

FE Team | Published: November 06, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

FE Report
The country received remittances worth more than US$2.0 billion in the first four months of the current fiscal, which marked a 28.36 per cent growth over that of the same period of the last fiscal, official sources said.
The earning from the remittances in the period came as a continuation to last fiscal's trend and a record inflow of $5.98 billion. The growth in 2006-07 was 24.52 per cent over the previous fiscal.
Remittances worth $2.19 billion were received during the July-October period of the current fiscal 2007-08 against $1.70 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal, according to the Bangladesh Bank (BB) statistics, released Monday.
The remittances from Bangladeshis working abroad were estimated at $562.87 million last month (October), registering a decline by $27.80 million from the previous month.
Last September, the total amount of money remitted by Bangladeshis wage earners amounted to $590.67 million, which was $144.67 million higher than that of the corresponding month of the previous fiscal, the BB's data showed.
The country's foreign exchange reserve stood at $5.43 billion Monday due mainly to robust growth of remittances, sources in the central bank said.
"The flow of remittances may increase in the month of November, ahead of the Eid-ul-Azha festival," a BB senior official told the FE Monday.
He also said the central bank has already asked the commercial banks for taking measures to boost the flow of inward remittances in line with the new guidelines about drawing arrangements with overseas exchange houses.
The BB has already introduced the guidelines on drawing arrangements with overseas exchange houses by raising their security deposits to avoid any financial risks.
Sources, however, said some private commercial banks (PCBs) along with the nationalised commercial banks (NCBs) are desperately trying to increase the flow of inward remittances from different parts of the world including the Middle East, the United Kingdom, Malaysia and Singapore.
"We will continue our efforts to boost the flow of inward remittances to meet the demand for foreign exchange," a senior official of a PCB told the FE.
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, and boost the country's foreign exchange reserves.
Besides, the BB has already directed the commercial banks to expedite the delivery of remittances to the beneficiaries to encourage expatriates to use the banking channel for overseas fund transfers.