Remittance inflows from the Middle Eastern countries dropped by 12% in the last 10 months of the current fiscal year due to the fall in manpower export and the political unrest over January 5 polls.
The country received US$6.92bn in July-April period in fiscal year 2013-14 compared to $7.87bn in the same period of the last fiscal year.
However, remittance inflow from the Western countries increased by 8% to $4.80bn during the 10 months from $4.43bn in the same period of the previous fiscal year, according to the Bangladesh Bank data.
The downward trends both in the labour migration and remittance continued since 2013 due to a gradual shrinking of recruitment of the migrant workers, said a senior executive of Bangladesh Bank.
The major recipient countries of Bangladeshi workers in the Middle East are now interested to recruit ‘only skilled female workers’ instead of the male workers, he said.
Overseas employment decreased by 10.73% in January-March period, according to he statistic of the Bangladesh Manpower Export and Training (BMET).
A total of 96,068 workers went abroad with job offer from January to March of the current year while some 1,07,626 had gone abroad with jobs during the same period in 2013, showing a decline of 11,567 overseas employment in three months.
BMET also recorded that about four lakh workers including male and female got overseas jobs from January to December in 2013 against over six lakh workers in 2012.
Of the Middle Eastern countries, remittance inflow from Kingdom of Saudi Arab decreased to $2.58bn in July to April period of the current fiscal year compared to $3.35bn in the same period of the last fiscal year followed by from UAE $2.21bn compared to $2.41bn, Qatar $210m compared to $247m and from Oman $564m compared to $511m.
Of the Western countries, remittance inflow from USA increased by 24% to $1.91bn in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year compared to $1.54bn in the same period of the last fiscal year while country received $757.80m remittance from the United Kingdom (UK) in the same period, which is 12% down from $851.26m.
The country received $862m remittance from Malaysia in July-April period of the current fiscal year compared to $831m in the same period of the last fiscal year.
Of the total $11.72bn remittance that country received in the 10 months of the current fiscal year, $1.32bn came through Argani Bank, $1.08bn through Janata Bank, $1.21bn through Sonali Bank and $130m through Rupali Bank compared to $1.35bn, $1.14bn, $1.33bn and $107m respectively in the same period of the last fiscal year, according to the Bangladesh Bank data.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
