Economy Desk: Two-thirds of the remittance flow in the country comes from Middle Eastern countries. However, remittance flows have declined in five out of seven Middle Eastern countries. Generally, expatriates send a little more money to their relatives in the country ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha.
But there was an exception last March. Breaking the traditional custom, this time, fewer remittances have come ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr. According to the data from Bangladesh Bank, where the remittance came in last February at 216 million US dollars, there was 199 million dollars in March. In other words, remittances have come in about 8 percent less in March compared to February.
Analyzing the country-wise remittance-flow statistics, it can be seen that most remittances come from 18 countries in the world. But last month, remittances from most of these countries were lower. Of this, remittances from the United Arab Emirates in February were about $480 million, while $365 million came in March. Remittances from Saudi Arabia were $182.6 million in February, compared to $179.6 million in March. Thus, remittance flows from the UK, Jakarta, Malaysia, Qatar, Singapore, France, Jordan, Spain, Germany, Japan, Brunei, and Iraq decreased in March compared to February. A source related to Bangladesh Bank said,
Of concern is the continued decline in remittance flows from the Middle East. Because two-thirds of the country’s remittances come from the Middle East, A decrease from here means a decrease overall. Due to this, remittance flow decreased by about 8 percent in March compared to last February. In this direction, the foreign exchange reserves are decreasing every month due to the increase in the outflow of foreign currency compared to the inflow. The central bank is making various efforts to keep this reserve within a certain limit. The latter is borrowing dollars from commercial banks. So far, banks have kept about one billion dollars in central bank reserves. Despite this, Bangladesh Bank is not able to maintain foreign exchange reserves as per the conditions of the IMF.
