The government has taken various initiatives for the welfare of both expatriate workers and workers returning from abroad to boost remittance inflow.
Controlling inflation and price of the dollar is a big challenge in the fiscal 2022-23 budget as these indicators have emerged as a new pressure on the economy.
The dollar needs to be kept stable to curb the cost of imports and control inflation.
However, in the last several months, the forex market faced a huge demand of Greenback due to higher import payments.
As a result, the Bangladesh Bank devalued Taka against dollar to stabilize the forex market.
That is why, the government has taken several steps to increase remittance inflow to meet higher demand of dollar.
Foreign Secretary Masood bin Momen has already sent a letter to 81 Bangladesh missions abroad to take urgent steps to increase the flow of remittances from expatriates to keep the foreign exchange reserves consolidated.
The letter instructed to make progress by June 15.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said in his budget speech on Thursday that the rate of incentive on sending remittance is kept unchanged at 2.5 percent in the fiscal year 2022-23.
He hopes that a satisfactory growth of remittance will be back on track soon.
However, since the very beginning of FY2021-2022, the income from remittances slightly decreased, he mentioned.
With a view to encouraging remittance through legal channels, he said the government raised the rate of incentives by 0.5 percent to 2.5 percent from January, 2022.
"The government has withdrawn the mandatory provisions for submission of earning documents of the remitters in the case of availing cash incentives against remittances exceeding $ 5,000. As a result, in recent months the flow of remittance has begun to increase again," he said.
About the overseas job, Mustafa Kamal said that in order to ensure dignified jobs for Bangladeshi workers abroad, it is necessary to ensure quality training and skill.
With this end in view, all the training programmes of technical training institutes and institutes of marine technology are conducted under the National, Technical and Vocational Qualification Framework (NTVQF) from the current fiscal year.
A plan of action for establishing technical training institutes at every Upazila by phases has been taken up for inspiring the marginalised communities across the country, he added.
He said the implementation of the project for establishing 100 technical institutes at Upazila level will start soon.
Moreover, there is a plan to ensure overseas employment for 8.10 lakh Bangladeshi workers and provide skill development training to 5.20 lakh workers, he said.
However, Expatriates sent $1.88 billion in remittances in May this year which decreased by 13 percent as compared to the same month of the last year.
In the same period of previous year, it was $2.17 billion.
Eid-ul-Fitr was celebrated in the country on May 3. Expatriates sent a total of $2.09 billion remittance in April ahead of Eid. It was the highest amount in a single month of the current fiscal year.
This means remittance fell by $125 million or 6.23 percent in a month.
This important index of the economy increased last December and January after a decline for five consecutive months (July-November 2021). In December and January, remittance was $1.63 billion and $1.70 billion respectively.
In February, this inflow stumbled again as expatriates sent $1.49 billion during the time.
On the other hand, the country’s migrants sent home $1.86 billion in March ahead of Ramadan this year, which is 25 percent more than that in the previous month and also the highest in the past eight months.
