Remittance drops barring from US

Remittance inflow from all countries except the United States dropped in the just concluded financial year. According to the central bank, expatriate Bangladeshis sent home US $ 14.22 billion in the 2013-2014 FY, ending on June 30, against $ 14.46b in the previous FY. However, the Bangladeshis living in the US remitted $2.32b in 2013-14, 25 per cent higher than $1.86b sent in 2012-13. Economists and bankers have attributed the increase in remittance from the US to a recovery of the American economy from the slowdown that ran for several years. Bangladesh Bank’s Forex Reserve and Treasury Management Department General Manager Kazi Saidur Rahman said: ‘Unemployment rate has declined in the US. New employments have been created. The income of the people living in the US has increased. The overall income of the Bangladeshis (living there) has gone up. So they’re sending home more money now,’ he stated. Zaid Bakht, Research Director at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), agreed. He said that Bangladeshis in the US were comparatively well placed. ‘Both income and expenditure of the expatriates in the US are high. They could not remit money for quite some time due to the slowdown. They’re now sending more money as the situation has improved,’ he added. The Centre for Policy Dialogue Executive Director Mustafizur Rahman also echoed Saidur Rahman’s view. He said stability in Bangladesh’s foreign exchange market also contributed to increase in remittance from the US, according to bdnews24.com.