RemittancesGateway.org

Bangladesh's Remittance Flow Records Over 20 Percent Growth

Thursday, 04 February 2010 09:04

Source: All Headline News
By: Siddique Islam

Dhaka, Bangladesh (AHN) - Bangladeshi workers abroad sent home a record $6.48 billion as remittances in the first seven months of the current fiscal year, registering a 20.89 percent growth over the same period in the last fiscal year.

The remittances from Bangladeshi nationals working abroad were estimated at $950.92 million in January, up by $77.06 million from the previous month. In December 2009, the remittance was $873.86 million, according to the central bank statistics, released on Wednesday.

"The inflow of remittances is still at a satisfactory level," a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country's central bank, told KAHN Media in Dhaka, adding that most of the Bangladeshi expatriates sent higher amount of remittances to their relatives during the period under review to facilitate the current Boro cropping.

Bangladesh received $6.484 billion during the July-January period of the fiscal 2009-10 against $5.363 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal, the BB's data showed.

The latest figure shows that despite the slowdown of overseas jobs, inflow of remittances has maintained an upward trend --- a continuation of last fiscal year when remittances grew 22.41 percent, the central bank officials said.

The BB earlier took a series of measures to encourage expatriate Bangladeshis to send their hard-earned wages through formal banking channels instead of the illegal "hundi" system in order to 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 foreign exchange houses so that our overseas workers can find it easy to send money home. We're also trying to set up our own exchange houses in different parts of the world," Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Agrani Bank Limited Syed Abu Naser Bukhtear Ahmed told KAHN in the capital, Dhaka.

The country's foreign exchange reserves stood at $10.13 billion on Wednesday due to the robust growth of remittances, the BB officials confirmed.

Read more: http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7017711014#ixzz0eYIGVAKP