Remittance inflow grows by 4.23% in December

Despite a bleak economic outlook at home and abroad, Bangladeshi expatriates continue to bring a sigh of relief to the local economy as the incoming remittance increased by 4.29 percent year-on-year in the last month of 2022.

According to the latest data from the central bank, Bangladeshi expatriates sent $1.69 billion as a remittance in December 2020. It was $1.63 billion in the corresponding month of 2021.

With this, the aggregated remittance in the first six months of the fiscal year 2022-23 is $10.49 billion. It was $10.24 billion in the same period of FY22.

Though the central bank is expecting a sharp rise in inward remittance flow, December’s inflow was $104 million or 6.5 percent more than what was received in the previous month of November.

Earlier, in a bid to improve remittance inflow, the Bangladesh Bank announced half a dozen facilities including cash incentives and free-of-cost remittance-sending opportunities

However, the response has not been what was expected.

According to the information from the Statistics Department of the Bangladesh Bank, remittance inflow in the first two months (July-August) was above $2 billion.

However, in September rumours spread among the expatriates that sending money to Bangladesh through the banking channel was not secure, which apparently impacted the remittance flow.

In that month, the flow declined to $1.53 billion and continued to stay well below $2 billion.

The highest amount of remittance came through Islami Bank ($501 million) in December 2022, followed by Al-Arafah Islami Bank ($88 million), Dutch Bangla Bank ($86 million), Mutual Trust Bank ($55 million), and Bank Asia ($51 million).

The government has set a target of 15 percent growth in remittances in 2022-23.