Remittance surges at the beginning of Ramzan
28 March 2023
Staff Reporter :
The foreign reserves have seen a surge of remittance inflow at the beginning of Ramzan as valid or banking channels have received nearly $1.6 billion in remittance to the country until March 24.
According to the recently published statistics by the Central Bank on Monday, it has been found that remittances worth $1.5975 billion have been received in the first 24 days of the current month.
As a result, the daily average has come to $66 million dollars. In March last year, the daily average of remittance was around $60 million dollars. If the current trend
continues, remittance will reach two billion dollars at the end of the month.
Among them, $195.67 million has been received through the state owned banks in the country, $35.47 million has been received through a specialised bank, $1.3614 billion has been received through private banks, and $48.5 million has been received through foreign banks.
In a press conference in the capital on Monday, Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue Fahmida Khatun said that there were negative trend in the earnings of remittance for a long time, but a positive trend is being observed currently.
But she also mentioned that the remittance flow is not still satisfactory comparing with the number of manpower export. The concerned stakeholders should pay attention here.
Several measures have been taken to increase remittance in Bangladesh, including providing cash incentives of up to 2.5 per cent for remittances through legal channels, honouring remittance senders with CIP recognition, expanding and simplifying remittance distribution processes, providing investment and home financing facilities for Bangladeshi expatriates, encouraging international money transfer operators to establish drawing arrangements with Bangladeshi banks within the Fin Tech framework, and waiving bank or exchange house charges for sending remittances.
The Bangladesh bank has reported that in February, the country received remittances worth 156 crore 12 lakh 60 thousand US dollars.
In the first eight months of the current fiscal year (from July to February), a total of 1,401 crore 33 lakh US dollars in remittances have been received.
During the same period in the previous fiscal year, remittances worth 1,343 crore 85 lakh US dollars were received. During the mentioned period, remittances worth 574 crore 8 lakh US dollars in higher than the previous year.
