Sylhet Bureau :
The Sylhet division earned 10 per cent of the country’s total remittance inflow from 2019 to 2021, according to a central bank study published in the Bangladesh Bank Parikrama, July 2022.
An analysis of the study shows that the Sylhet division earned Tk 47,843 crore in remittance during the three years, which is a substantial chunk of Bangladesh’s total inflow of Tk 4,69,026 crore.
Bangladesh earned Tk 1,29,735 crore in remittance back in 2019, where Sylhet division’s earnings was Tk 13,675 crore, which is 10.54 per cent of total inflow. In 2020, Sylhet division’s income was Tk 15,415 crore or 9.96 per cent of the total earnings reaching Tk 1,54,790 crore.
The country’s earnings was TK 18,753 crore or 10.16 per cent of total income Tk 1,84,501 crore in 2021.
Along with remittance inflow, year-on-year growth in Sylhet region was also encouraging. In 2020, the country’s total remittance income growth was 19.31 per cent, where Sylhet division’s growth was 12.72 per cent.
In 2021, the country’s growth was 42.21 per cent and Sylhet division’s growth was 37.13 per cent. Among the four districts of Sylhet division, the highest remittances inflow was in Sylhet district. In 2019 to 2021, Sylhet received remittances of Tk 26,427 crore. At the same time, Moulvibazar received Tk 8,846 crore, Habiganj Tk 6,491 crore and Sunamganj Tk 6,078 crore.
A significant portion of Sylhet division’s migrants are living in the UK. As a result, the amount of remittance sent by Sylhet expatriates from the UK is also higher. Bangladesh received 7.68 per cent of total remittances in 2019, 7.58 per cent in 2020 and 8.54 per cent in 2021 from the UK.
The study also mentioned that 84,11,092 migrants went abroad from 47 districts of Bangladesh from 2005 to 2019. Out of this, 6,76,298 people migrated from the Sylhet division, which was 8.04 per cent of the total migration.
The largest migration was from Sylhet district, hitting 2,16,175 people, followed by Moulvibazar district 1,74,241 people, Habiganj 1,62,553 and Sunamganj 1,23,329 people. Most remittance in the Sylhet region comes through private commercial banks, the study noted.
In the three years from 2019 to 2021, a total of 42.72 per cent of remittances came through private banks. At the same time, 31.81 per cent of remittances came through government banks and 21.64 per cent came through Islamic banks.
