Staff Correspondent
The flow of remittances increased by over 18 per cent in the month of November over the previous month due to the Eid-ul-Azha festival, officials said.
The remittances from Bang-ladeshi nationals working abroad were estimated to be S$ 767.35 million in November this year. In October the remittances stood at $646.51 million, according to the Bangladesh Bank (BB) statistics.
“We expect the upward trend of remittances will continue this month due to the parliamentary election scheduled for Dec-ember 29,” a senior official of the Central Bank said.
However, remittances from Bangladeshi expatriates stood at $ 3.752 billion in the first five months of the current fiscal, growing by 33.77 per cent from that of the corresponding period of last fiscal.
Bangladesh received $ 3.752 billion during the period from July to November of the fiscal 2008-2009 against $ 2.805 billion of the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, the BB data showed.
In the last fiscal, the country received remittances worth over $7.914 billion from Bangladeshis working abroad.
The country’s foreign exchange reserve stood at $ 5.437 billion till Monday due to robust growth of remittances.
The central bank earlier took a series of measures to encourage the expatriate Bangladeshis to send home their hard-earned money through the formal banking channel instead of ”hundi’ and boost the country’s foreign exchange reserve.
Besides, the BB has already directed the commercial banks to expedite delivery of remittances to the beneficiaries at the quickest possible time to encourage the expatriates to use the banking channel for overseas fund transfer.
“Some workers are forced to send home their money through informal channels due to a number of legal barriers. But the scenario is gradually changing as a result of awareness campaigns,” the BB official said.
A large number of expatriate Bangladeshis still prefer to remit home their money through informal channels as they face tremendous problem sending their earnings through formal channels.
In most cases, the banks take unnecessary time to hand over money to the relatives of the remitters or deposit the money to the respective accounts.
Courtesy: thebangladeshtoday.com
