Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- The flow of inward remittance increased significantly in the first 10 days of this month mainly due to the Eid-ul-Fitr festival, officials said.
Bangladesh received $ 599.59 million as remittances between July 1 and July 10 from Bangladeshi nationals who are working abroad, according to the central bank’s latest statistics.
Talking to BBN, a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) said the inflow of remittances might exceed $ 1.20 billion by the end of this month if the existing trend of inward remittances continues.
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.
“We’re working continuously to increase the flow of inward remittances from different parts of the world,” the central banker explained.
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.
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 BB official.
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 $25.19 billion Thursday from $25.03 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.
BBN/SSR/AD