Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) - The central bank of Bangladesh has relaxed foreign exchange regulations allowing exporters of services in non-physical form to receive their inward remittance without prior approval of the Bangladesh Bank (BB).
“The central bank has the measure to facilitate service exporters such as business services, professional or research and advisory services,” a BB senior official said.
Under the new regulations, minimum 50 percent of the receipts in foreign exchange will be credited to the account of the relevant service exporters in equivalent local currency.
The remainder of the foreign currency may be credited to exporters’ retention quota (ERQ) account, maintained in the name of the exporter, according to the regulations.
The central banker also said the commercial banks are now free to credit the proceeds of the inward remittance to the accounts of the exporters concerned.
The BB has issued a circular in this connection recently and asked the commercial banks to follow the latest instructions relating to receiving inward remittance by the service exporters.
“Remittances from abroad as payments against these and all other non-agency service exports in non-physical form may also to be credited to local currency accounts and ERQ accounts in the name of the concerned exporters,” the BB said in its circular.
The central bank earlier asked the commercial banks to credit inward remittance received against business process outsourcing (BPO), provided by individuals.
The Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) welcomed the BB’s latest move, saying that it would help increase export earnings from the software and IT-related services.
“We expect that it will help to boost up the inflow of remittance and export earnings in the near future,” President of the BASIS Mahboob Zaman said, adding that Bangladesh received US$ 35 million as export earnings from software and IT-related services in 2011.
BBN/SSR/AD-24Feb12-10:15 pm (BST)
