Bangladesh's Remittance Flow Records Over 27 Percent Growth

March 3, 2009 10:08 a.m. EST

Dhaka, Bangladesh (AHN) - Bangladesh expatriates sent home a record $6.148 billion in remittances during the first eight months of the current fiscal year, marking a 27.01 percent growth over the same period of the last fiscal year.

"The flow of remittances is still at a satisfactory level," a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country's central bank, told AHN Media in Dhaka on Tuesday.

The BB official also said that the total amount of remittances dropped slightly in February over that of the previous month due mainly to fewer working days.

The remittances from Bangladeshi nationals working abroad were estimated at $784.47 million in February last, a fall by $74.56 million from the previous month. In January 2009, the remittance was worth $859 million, according to the central bank statistics, released on Tuesday.

Bangladesh received $6.148 billion during the July-February period of fiscal 2008-09 against $4.840 billion of the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, the BB data showed.

"The central bank has already asked the commercial banks for taking effective measures to expedite the flow of inward remittances from different parts of the world including the Middle East, United Kingdom, Malaysia, Italy and Singapore," the BB official added.

The central bank of Bangladesh 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.