DHAKA: Bangladesh’s drive across the country and abroad to plug the holes began to remedy recent remittance downturn, boosting monthly turnover above US$1.0 billion again in January.
Officials said the turnaround became tangible after a falling trend for consecutive two months as different initiatives, taken by authorities concerned to check inflow of remittances through illegal ‘hundi’ system, began to work.
“The government as well as the central bank has already taken different measures to revamp the flow of inward remittances shortly,” a senior official said.
As part of the moves, a research group is now working to find out various factors, including the flow of inward remittances using illegal channel, which cause fall in the official receipts of remittances.
The remittances from Bangladeshi nationals working abroad were estimated at $1.01 billion in January, up by $50.71 million over the previous month. In December 2016, the remittance was $958.73 million. It was $951.37 million in November. The flow of inward remittances fetched $1.15 billion in January 2016.
The inflow of overall remittances dropped by nearly 17 cent in the first seven months of the current fiscal year (FY) against the same period of the last fiscal.
The remittance receipts came down to $7.18 billion during the July-January period of the FY 2016-17 from $8.64 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) data showed.
Earlier, the BB had relaxed policy for establishment of drawing arrangement between the overseas exchange houses and the banks operating in Bangladesh to facilitate the inflow of remittances.
Under the relaxations, the amount of security deposit for drawing arrangement came down to US$10,000 from $25,000 while security deposit for Non-Resident Taka (NRT) account got trimmed down to Tk 0.20 million from Tk 0.50 million.
Besides, the BB officials are scheduled to meet with senior officials the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment on February 09 to discuss the overall situation.
Mentioning different initiatives, BB Governor Fazle Kabir expressed the hope that the flow of inward remittance would return into the upward trend from the present slowdown within the next two to three months.
Currently, 29 exchange houses are operating across the globe alongside 1140 drawing arrangements set up abroad to expedite the remittance inflow, according to a BB senior official.
Most banks are trying to increase the flow of inward remittances from the Middle East, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Italy and the United States.
“We’re still serious about increasing the inflow of remittances through official channels to meet our internal foreign-exchange demand,” a senior official of a leading commercial bank said.
