It is encouraging to hear that our foreign exchange reserves have hit a record high of $41.03 billion. The Covid-19 pandemic has hit economies around the world hard, but as a results of decreased imports, our reserves have been growing. Amid plenty of loss and suffering, the health of our forex reserves can be seen as a silver lining.
The driving factor to pay attention to, here, though is our increased remittance inflow. Remittance earnings have always been the backbone of the Bangladesh economy, along with our RMG industry, but this has been particularly true during Covid-19. Remittance inflow increased by a staggering 48.5% in the July-September period of the current fiscal year as compared to last fiscal. No doubt, the government’s issuance of a 2% cash incentive has been smart policy, and should be recognized as such.
According to the World Bank, Bangladesh is the 8th highest remittance receiving country in the world right now. We should not get complacent though, there may be some stiff competition from our neighbouring nations.
Bangladesh should keep its eyes on the ball. With the right policies, we may very well be poised to overtake other South Asians nations in terms of various other economic indicators as well.
But since remittance earnings have always been one of our core strengths, we must make sure to take care of those who make it possible. Our migrant workers go abroad in the face of great uncertainty to earn foreign currency, but rarely do they get the credit they deserve. Let us strengthen our remittance earnings further by working on various diplomatic channels, and making our sizable population of migrant workers happier, and hence, more productive.
