Bangladesh recorded a sharp rise in remittance inflows in May, as migrant workers sent more money home in the run-up to Eid-ul-Azha, which falls in early June.
The US House Budget Committee voted late on Sunday to move forward with President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act", a proposal that could make sending money back home more expensive for three lakh Bangladeshis currently living in the United States.
Remittance inflow in the first ten months and eleven days of this fiscal year surpassed $25 billion, breaking all previous records.
Remittance inflow posted a 65% year-on-year jump
The inflow was 82.46 percent higher than the same period last year, according to industry insiders.
Remittance inflows surged by around 78 percent year-on-year in the first 19 days of March as migrant workers sent more money home to relatives ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr, the largest religious occasion in the country.
Over 11.35 lakh Bangladeshis migrated to foreign nations in 2022, the highest ever in the history of the south Asian country.
Bangladesh economy was all set at the beginning of 2022 to get its growth momentum back after recovering from the prolonged Covid-19 pandemic. But, the start of the Ukraine war in February slowed the country’s joy run significantly, making it an eventful year to remember. Let’s see how 2022 was for Bangladesh.
Remittance flow to Bangladesh is projected to drop by $1 billion to $21 billion this year from $22 billion last year, according to the World Bank.
Taking selfies from the stands and sitting on the grassy pitch, thousands of migrant workers gathered in a Doha stadium to watch the opening match of the first World Cup in the Middle East.
Jamuna Bank Limited has received approval from the Bangladesh Bank to establish an exchange house in Spain.
The Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) yesterday froze 230 accounts of several mobile financial service providers as the accountholders were allegedly involved in hundi.
The exchange rate of dollar needs to be freed to make the garment business profitable at this crisis time, said a top leader of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) today.
"Complacency has brought us to the current forex reserve situation,” said Salehuddin Ahmed, former governor of the Bangladesh Bank.
The government should come up with a clear strategy to stop fast depletion of the foreign currency reserves in a bid to save the country from a major crisis, said a noted economist today.
The external factors are not only responsible for Bangladesh’s present economic volatility, rather there are some issues which remained unattended for a long time such as low revenue collection, absence of quality public expenditure and the non-performing loans, said noted economist Debapriya Bhattacharya today.
