The inflow of remittances witnessed a slight rise in September ahead of the Eid-ul Azha festival, with the country receiving a total of $1.02bn from overseas wage-earners.
The trend of remittance inflow, meanwhile, was lower in August as the country got $1bn, which was $230m less than the previous month’s. Expatriate Bangladeshis remitted around $1.23bn in July ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr.
Remittance inflow witnesses a sharp rise ahead of the two Eids every year as Bangladeshi migrant workers send home more money to meet the increased expenditures by their families during the religious festivals.
Although remittances increased by $20m last month ahead of the upcoming Eid, the inflow is lower compared to last Eid-ul Azha due to a slowdown in manpower exports.
The country received around $1.3bn during Eid-ul Azha last year.
“Slowdown in remittances could be due to the slower rate of people going overseas compared to last year, and possibly more use of non-bank channels to send remittances,’’ Hassan Zaman, the chief economist of Bangladesh Bank, said.
The migration of Bangladeshi workers to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been declining since September last year due to a restriction following allegations of irregularities in the recruitment process.
Since the restriction was imposed in August 2012, around 7,000 Bangladeshis migrated to the UAE until May this year, according to statistics of the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET).
On an average, only 500 to 700 Bangladeshis have been migrating to the UAE per month, while the figure used to hover around 15,000 to 20,000 every month before August 2012, according to the statistics.
The UAE used to be the biggest labour market for Bangladeshi workers until August 2012, as it alone hosted more than 200,000 workers, out of the nearly 600,000 who migrated to different countries last year.
The decline in migration has taken its toll on the remittances sent by Bangladeshis from the UAE. According to BMET statistics, Bangladeshis in the UAE sent home $250m in January this year, which came down to $215m in May.
Most Bangladeshi migrants work in Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain.
Bangladesh received the highest remittances from Saudi Arabia that amounted to $484m in July-August, while the second highest sender was UAE with $430m, followed by Kuwait with $182m, according to Bangladesh Bank (BB) data.
Remittances sent from other countries included $368m from USA, $154m from United Kingdom, $154m from Malaysia, $62m from Singapore and $58m from Italy.
The central bank has taken a series of measures to encourage expatriate Bangladeshis to send home their hard-earned money through formal banking channels, instead of the illegal “hundi” system to help boost the country’s foreign exchange reserves.
Most private and state-owned commercial banks are also trying to increase the flow of inward remittances from the Middle East, UK, USA, Malaysia, Singapore and Italy.
The country’s forex reserves stood at $16.15bn at the end of September, after reaching $16.25bn at the end of August, according to BB sources
