AHM Mustafa Kamal Finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said on Wednesday remittance inflow in July-August period jumped by 50 per cent thanks to the proactive policies taken by the government.
"It's unprecedented… (an) unbelievable occurrence," the minister told reporters after a virtual meeting of the cabinet committee on government purchase.
Mr Kamal said the growth is compared to the same month of last fiscal year, which was the highest remittance earning year. In the last fiscal year, the country received US$18 billion, up from $16 billion the year before, he said.
Data shows in July-August period of this fiscal, the country received $4.563 billion against $3.042 billion in last fiscal year.
The minister said when he was the planning minister, he himself conducted a study, which showed that of the total remittance inflow,51 per cent comes through the official channel while the rest comes through illicit ways.
Since then, he had been preoccupied with the idea of bringing the total flows into the official channel.
"We took two steps-one is providing incentives for meeting the expenses of remittance sending while the other one is easing remittance sending process," he said.
Now, the remitters are not being asked excessive questions to send money to Bangladesh, he said.
Replying to queries, the minister said he was upbeat about the increased earnings from exports as well.
"Like remittances, export earning is also on an upward trend. In July-August, the income will break a record. I believe it will continue," said Mr Kamal.
In the cabinet meeting, the committee approved 10 projects involving Tk 17.95 billion.
Under an approval, the Energy and Mineral Resources Division will import 3.49 million MMBtu liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Singapore sport market.
This is for the first time, Bangladesh is buying LNG from the spot market, while in the past LNG was only bought under the long-term contract. Mr Kamal termed the new form of buying "a very smart move." "We will be able to buy LNG at a competitive price."
The other approvals include: importing 150,000 tonnes of triple super phosphate (TSP) fertiliser at a cost of Tk 4.26 billion, importing 210,000 tonnes of Diammonium phosphate (DAP) fertiliser at a cost of Tk 6.96 billion and buying 30,000 tonnes bagged granular urea fertiliser at Tk 685 million.
Besides, he construction of two twenty-storied residential buildings- one in Rajarbagh Police Lines in Dhaka and another in Chittagong also got the approval.
Two proposals of the power division and another of shipping ministry also got go-ahead.
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