Staff Reporter :
Remittances inflow fell by 15 per cent year-on-year to USD 21.03 billion in the just-concluded fiscal year, data of Bangladesh Bank showed on Sunday.
The data revealed amid the ongoing instability in the US dollar exchange rate between banks and the kerb market.
Experts and businesses said that the decreasing inflow of remittance may intensifying pressure on the country’s macroeconomy.
Remittance flow has decreased in the last fiscal years as many Bangladeshi migrants sent their money through the non-banking channel like hundi system illegaly, said an official of the Bangladesh Bank.
The inflow went up in FY2021 since the hundi system was largely inoperative due to the lockdown enforced worldwide during the pandemic.
Bangladesh Diasporas remitted $21.03 billion in the 2021-22 fiscal year, down from $24.77 billion in 2020-21 fiscal year, as per the latest data from the Statistics Department of the Bangladesh Bank.
Industry insiders said the remittance earnings have decreased since expatriates now opt for illegal channels, such as hundi, to send money home as the gap of the exchange rate of the American greenback between banks and the kerb market has widened further.
When contacted, Serajul Islam, Executive Director and Spokesman of Bangladesh Bank told The New Nation, “It is not unusual to fell a little sum of remittance in the current fiscle year as the previous years’ remittances were influenced by the covid-19 pandemic.”
The Executive Director of the central bank said, “Migrant workers of our country have sent more money as remittance to their families to meet their needs as the
covid situation created extra ordinary necessities to face the pandemic.”
Meanwhile, the inward remittance inflow fell by 16 percent in the 11 months compared with the corresponding period of the previous year.
Statistics Department of the Bangladesh Bank source showed that remittance inflow was found 19194.41 million US Dollar since July to May months in the 2021-2022 fiscal year.
It was 3643 million US dollar less than the fiscal year 2020-2021 which gained USD 22,837 million.
As per the statistics it was 16 pc reduced than the previous year’s remittance inflow.
Meanwhile the central bank thinks the current remittance inflow is normal as the previous two years’ remittances were not usual at all.
He said also that many of the migrant workers had to leave their jobs and comeback home with all of their savings there, which have brought the remittance inflow abnormally high.
Local income of many of their families has been stopped while inflations of daily essentials hiked abnormally which influenced the diasporas to send more money to their dear ones which increased the remittance inflow also, experts said.
Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Bank spokesman said most of the money sent by the migrant Bangladeshis arrived in the country through legal way by the banking channels increasing the remittance inflows as the flights were suspended across the world due to the pandemic.
The central bank spokesman said also that after easing covid situation, many of the migrant workers started their new jobs with renewing their Akama or work permits which created extra expenditures obstructing them to send home more money, causing the remittance earning reduced.
Apart from these, experts said that the expenditure of lives abroad also hiked due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
Bangladesh Bank data showed that the remittance flow was USD 1885 million in May, this year while it was USD 2171 million in the same months last year.
The amount was USD 2010 in April this year which was USD 2067, a little bit high in the same month last year.
The remittance was USD 1859 million in March, 2022 comparatively less than the USD 1910 million of the same month of the previous year.
In February,2022, the remittance was USD 1494 million which also was less by USD 286 million than the USD 1780 million in the same month of the previous year.
Similarly remittance inflows of almost all months of the current fiscal year found lower than these were in the previous year, as per the central bank’s data.
