Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) – Bangladeshi working abroad sent home a record US$3.61 billion as remittances in the first four months of the current fiscal, registering a 21.24 per cent growth over the same period last fiscal.
The remittances from Bangladeshi nationals working abroad were estimated at $911.20 million in October, up by $23.63 million from the previous month. In September 2009, the remittance was $887.57 million, according to the central bank statistics, released on Tuesday.
“The flow of inward remittances may increase this month ahead of the Eid-ul-Azha festival,” a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country’s central bank, told BBN in Dhaka.
Bangladesh received $3.619 billion during the July-October period of fiscal 2009-10 against $2.985billion in the same period of the previous fiscal, the BB’s data showed.
The central bank earlier took a series of measures to encourage the expatriate Bangladeshis to send their hard earned money through formal banking channel instead of the illegal “hundi” system and boost the country’s foreign exchange reserves.
Four state-run commercial banks and dozens of private commercial banks have also stepped up efforts to increase remittance flow from the Middle East, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Singapore, Italy and the United States.
“We are establishing new contacts with overseas exchange houses so that our overseas workers can find it easy to send money back home,” a senior official of a private commercial bank said.
The country’s foreign exchange reserves stood at $9.56 billion on Tuesday due to the robust growth of remittances from Bangladeshis working abroad, the BB officials confirmed.
They also said the foreign exchange reserve would come down slightly as the central bank is set to pay around $487million to the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) in a day or two.
The ACU is an arrangement among the central banks of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka to settle trade related payments on a multilateral basis.
BBN/SS/SI/AD-04November09-3:31 am (BST)
