Staff Correspondent
The country’s remittance inflow witnessed an upward trend in the first three quarters of the current fiscal, which experts described due to the depreciation of the taka against the US dollar and the government incentives.
Bangladeshi expatriates sent home $12.5 billion in July 2019 – February 2020 - a 20 percent rise on the previous year, according to latest data from Bangladesh Bank.
The country received $10.41 billion remittances during July-February period in 2018-19 financial year, the data added.
“The remittance has recently increased as local currency Taka has depreciated against US dollar besides oil price hike abroad,” said Dr Zahid Hussain, former lead economist at World Bank.
The local currency Taka depreciated by Tk 0.80 against US dollar in the inter-bank forex market during the last year.
The greenback was quoted at Tk 84.95 each in the inter-bank market on Monday against Tk 84.15 in the same period of the previous year.
Besides, the government gives a 2 percent cash incentive on money remitted by expatriates, which experts said would encourage expatriates to use send money using legal channels instead of ‘Hundi’.
Data from BB shows Bangladeshi expatriates sent home $1.60 billion in July, $1.44 billion in August, $1.48 billion in September, $1.64 billion in October, $1.55 billion in November and $1.69 billion in December in 2019 as well as $1.64 billion in January and $1.45 billion in February respectively.
In the yearly basis, remittance came at $11.65 billion in FY11, $12.84 billion in FY12, $14.46 billion in FY13, $14.23 billion in FY14, $15.31 billion in FY15, $14.93 billion in FY16, $12.77 billion in FY17, $14.98 billion in FY18 and $$16.42 billion in FY19 respectively.
Dr Zahid, however, pointed out that expatriate workers, who are not good at English, have less formal education and industry-specific skills, thus often facing severe job insecurity.
He said that the government should train up workers labour before sending them abroad.
“Bangladesh needs to build good relations with other countries in a bid to explore more labour markets to boost up remittance inflow,” Zahid added.
