Bangladesh’s July-April remittance inflow rises 17.5% to $12.09 billion

With an over 21 percent year-on-year rise in April, Bangladesh’s remittance inflow has clocked around $12.09 billion in 10 months of the current fiscal year.

Expatriate Bangladeshis sent home over $1.32 billion in April, up slightly from $1.3 billion of March, according to latest data released by the Bangladesh Bank on Thursday.

The July-April remittance rose by around 17.5 percent year-on-year.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith is happy with the rise in remittance and hopes the total money sent by expatriates will touch $15 billion by the end of 2017-18 fiscal year.  

Speaking to bdnews24.com, he said he expected the expatriates to remit more in the remaining two months of the fiscal year due to Ramadan and Eid-ul-Fitr.

He also hoped the rise in remittance would continue due to surge in the prices of oil in the global market, value of US dollar against taka, and the measures to block the illegal ways of money transfer.

Money sent by the expatriates contributes to 12 percent of Bangladesh's GDP.

The remittance inflow had been hovering over $14 billion annually since 2012-13 fiscal year. It crossed the $15 billion mark in fiscal 2014-15.

The amount dropped 2.5 percent to a little below the $15 billion mark in 2015-16 and to a six-year low of $12.77 billion in the last fiscal year.

Bangladesh receives the bulk of its remittances from six Middle-East countries – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain.

In July-March period, Bangladesh’s manpower export rose 25 percent, according to the government.