The flow of inward remittances has crossed US$15 billion-mark in the just-concluded fiscal year due to various measures taken by the central bank to increase its flow, officials said.
Remittances sent by Bangladeshis working abroad stood at $15.31 billion, a record in the country's history, in the fiscal year (FY) 2014-15, marking a 7.6 per cent growth over the previous fiscal, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) said in a statement on Thursday.
The remittances from Bangladeshi nationals working abroad were estimated at $1.43 billion in June 2015, up by $ 109.98 million compared to the previous month. In May last, the remittances stood at $1.32 billion while it was $1.29 billion in June 2014.
"The higher inflow of remittance is the outcome of our continuous efforts in the last couple of years," Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Dr. Atiur Rahman said in the statement.
The BB governor also said the central bank along with commercial bankers had worked hard round the year to increase the flow of inward remittances from across the world.
"Stable exchange rate of Bangladesh Taka (BDT) against US dollar has also helped achieve the steady growth of inward remittance," the governor explained.
He said delivery channel of inward remittances to the beneficiary has improved significantly because of the bank-led effective mobile banking under the leadership of BB.
In FY'14, the inflow of remittance dropped by 1.61 per cent to $14.23 billion from $14.46 billion a year ago due to political turmoil and static trend in manpower export.
"We expect that the flow of inward remittances will increase further in the coming months when manpower export to Malaysia is set to start through private sectors between the two countries," Ahsan Ullah, executive director of BB, told the FE.
He said the central bank was working continuously to increase the flow of inward remittances from different parts of the world.
As part of the moves, the BB is allowing local banks to establish exchange houses and drawing arrangements abroad to facilitate the inflow of remittance, the central banker explained.
Currently, 34 exchange houses operating across the globe have set up 1,078 drawing arrangements abroad to scale up the remittance inflow, according to the executive director of the BB.
The central bank earlier took a set of measures, including building mass awareness so that expatriate Bangladeshis send their hard-earned money home through the banking channel instead of illegal 'hundi' system, which help boost the country's foreign-exchange reserves.
The country's foreign exchange reserves rose to $25.03 billion Thursday from $25.02 billion on the previous working day due mainly to higher inflow of remittances.
Currently, some private commercial banks along with the state-owned commercial banks are strive 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 working with non-resident Bangladeshis (NRBs) in different remittance sourcing countries and also with their families in Bangladesh to encourage increase the flow of inward remittances through banking channel," Mohammad Abdul Mannan, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited (IBBL), told the FE.
The CEO of the country's highest remittance recipient bank also said the commercial banks had already focused their attention on remittance business by improving the quality of their services relating to delivery of remitted money to the beneficiaries. "There is an ample scope to further increase the inflow of remittances with building awareness among the NRBs," Mr. Mannan noted.
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