Remittance rose by 7.91pc to $14.92b last year
FE Report | Tuesday, 6 January 2015
Bangladeshis working abroad sent home nearly US$15 billion in the just-concluded calendar year as a relative stable domestic political situation paid off, officials said.
Nearly nine million Bangladeshi overseas workers remitted $14.92 billion in 2014, marking a 7.91 per cent growth over that of the previous calendar year, according to the central bank statistics released Monday.
"We expect the upward trend of inward remittance will continue this calendar year," Md. Ahsan Ullah, executive director of the Bangladesh Bank (BB), told the FE.
He also said the stable exchange rate of the Bangladesh Taka (BDT) against the US dollar also helped the remittance growth.
In 2013, the inflow of remittance came down to $13.83 billion from $14.18 billion a year ago due mainly to the lower export of manpower coupled with political turmoil over polls.
The remittances from Bangladeshi nationals working abroad were estimated at $1.26 billion in December last, up $75.21 million from that of the previous month. In November 2014, the remittance receipt amounted to $1.18 billion, the BB data showed.
Talking to the FE, another BB official said the central bank is working continuously to increase the inflow of remittance from across the world.
Currently, 34 exchange houses are operating across the globe and have set up 1065 drawing arrangements abroad to expedite the remittance inflow.
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 reserve.
Four state-run commercial banks and dozens of private commercial banks have stepped up hunt for netting home increased remittance from the Middle East, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Singapore, Italy and the United States.
"We're now trying to establish new contacts with overseas exchange houses so that the migrant workers can find it easy to send money back home," a senior official of a leading private commercial bank said.
siddique.islam@gmail.com