Bangladesh's July-January remittances total 7.18 bln USD

Millions of Bangladeshis in the first seven months of the 2016-17 fiscal year (July 2016-June 2017) remitted home 7.18 billion U.S. dollars, a central bank official said Wednesday.

The Bangladesh Bank (BB) official who preferred to be unnamed said Bangladeshis remitted home around 1.01 billion U.S. dollars last month.

Overseas Bangladeshis in January last year sent home 1.15 billion dollars, the BB data showed.

In the first seven months of the last 2015-16 fiscal year (July 2015-June 2016), Bangladesh received 8.64 billion U.S. dollars remittance, according to BB statistics.

The flow of inward remittances in the last 2015-16 financial year fell about 2.55 percent to 14.93 billion U.S. dollars, the BB data showed.

Sources said the decrease in total inflow of remittance were due mainly to sluggish overseas employment in middle eastern Asian countries and devaluation of the currencies of Britain, Singapore and Malaysia against the U.S. dollars.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last month said a total of 3.72 million Bangladeshi people went abroad with overseas employment and remitted home 94.98 billion U.S. dollars from 2010 to 2016.

Hasina said the government has undertaken various programs to develop and modernize migration procedure along with welfare of the expatriate worker.

She said the cabinet has approved the "Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment Policy 2016" aimed at ensuring safe and easy migration of overseas job seekers alongside creating new employment and ensuring welfare and rights of the expatriate workers and their families. Endit