Inward remittance lowest in eight months

Bangladeshi expatriates sent home $1.52 billion in remittances in October, down by nearly 8 percent from the same month a year ago, Bangladesh Bank data shows.

According to BB data released on Tuesday, October 2022’s inward remittances were the lowest in the last eight months.

Compared to the inflow of nearly $1.54 billion in September, October’s receipts were slightly down by $14 million.

However, the inflow of remittances increased by 2 percent year-on-year in the July-October period of the current fiscal year.

Expatriate Bangladeshis remitted nearly $7.2 billion in the July-October of the current fiscal year, up from $7.05 billion for the corresponding period a year ago, BB data shows.

Bangladeshi expatriates sent home over $21 billion in the fiscal year 2021-22 and nearly $25 billion in 2020-21.

Inward remittance is on a decline at a time when Bangladesh badly needs the greenback to meet its demand for settling import payments. Dwindling exports have also aggravated the exchange rate as the local currency has depreciated by nearly 25 percent in the interbank market between April and October this year.

As a result, many banks are now declining to open letters of credit (LC) for imports. Even it has become difficult to open LC in recent days with a 100 percent margin as banks face severe scarcity of the dollar, bankers said.