Remittance hits new monthly high
Expats send home $937m ahead of Eid-ul Fitr
(Foreign exchange reserves exceed US$9 billion)
Siddique Islam
Bangladeshis working abroad remitted US$ 937 million in August this year --- the highest monthly inflow in history thanks largely to the forthcoming Eid-ul Fitr festival, officials said Thursday.
"The remittance amount in August is a new record after June," a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) told the FE, adding that $919.10 million was remitted in the last month of the previous fiscal year.
The August figure is up by $52.53 million from July, according to the central bank statistics released on Thursday.
BB officials said the record rise in remittance is due to the ensuing Eid-ul Fitr, the biggest religious festival for the Muslims, when traditionally migrant workers send home increased amount of money.
"Despite facing hard times due to the global recession, many workers saved more money and worked more hours in an effort to send higher amount to their families and relatives back home," said an official.
The August total took the remittance figure in the first two months of the current fiscal to $1.823 billion, registering an 18.19 per cent growth over the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.
Officials said the latest figure also shows that despite the slowdown of overseas jobs, inflow of money has maintained a robust trend --- a continuation of last fiscal year when remittance grew 22.41 per cent.
Overseas jobs for the country's unskilled and semi-skilled workers plunged by 30 per cent in August as the main job markets for Bangladeshi migrant workers continued to face the onslaught of the global meltdown.
The state-run Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) said 38,434 people found jobs abroad in August this year, down from 54,708 of the corresponding period of 2008.
In the first eight months of the year, as many as 327,359 Bangladeshis found jobs abroad, a fall of 38 per cent than the same period of the last year.
The World Bank has projected that despite the massive job squeeze for Bangladeshi migrants, the country would still receive nearly $11 billion in the current fiscal year.
"We think the amount could be higher than the World Bank projection. We have sent record number of workers abroad in 2007 and 2008. The robust remittance flow is due to the carried over effect of the last two years," another BB official said.
The central bank earlier took a series of measures to encourage expatriate Bangladeshis to send their hard earned money through formal banking channel instead of the illegal "hundi" system to boost the country's foreign exchange reserves.
As part of the measures, the BB has issued four more licences to three commercial banks in the last month for setting up exchange houses in different parts of the world aimed at expediting remittance inflow.
The central bank has also issued more clearances to the local banks for establishing contacts with overseas exchange houses through drawing arrangements.
The central bank has, so far, given approval to establish 280 exchange houses and set up 820 drawing arrangements abroad to boost flow of remittance through formal channels.
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. We're also setting up our own exchange houses," Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Agrani Bank Limited Syed Abu Naser Bukhtear Ahmed told the FE.
The country's foreign exchange reserves stood at $9.149 billion Thursday due to the robust remittance.
