Remittances drop by 14.32pc in Aug

The flow of inward remittances dropped by 14.32 per cent in August last after showing an upward trend in the previous month on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr festival, officials said Thursday.
Bangladeshi nationals working abroad sent US$ 1.19 billion in August last. The amount was lower by $ 202.32 million than remittance earnings in the previous month. In July 2015, remittance was $ 1.39 billion. It was $ 1.17 billion in August 2014, according to the central bank's statistics. The inflow of remittance decreased in the month of August after celebration of Eid-ul-Fitr, the biggest religious festival of the Muslims, a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) explained.
"We hoped that the flow of inward remittances would pick up this month ahead of Eid-ul-Azha festival," the central banker noted.
He also said the BB is working continuously to increase the flow of inward remittance.
The country received a total of $ 2.58 billion during the July-August period of the fiscal year (FY) 2015-16 against $ 2.67 billion in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, the BB data showed.
The central bank earlier took a set of measures to encourage the expatriate Bangladeshis to send their hard-earned money through the formal banking channel instead of illegal "hundi" system to help boost the country's foreign exchange reserves.
Four state-run commercial banks and dozens of private commercial banks have stepped up their efforts to increase remittance flow from the Middle East, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Singapore, Italy and the US.
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