DHAKA, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Bangladeshi expatriates in July sent home 2.09 billion U.S. dollars, the highest in 14 months, albeit largely buoyed by the Muslim festival of animal sacrifice and relaxation of various rules in recent months.
This amount is also up by 14 percent from 1.83 billion U.S. dollars received in the previous month.
The remittance flow to Bangladesh also rose to 11.76 percent year-on-year, when migrant workers sent home 1.87 billion dollars in July last year.
The higher inflow of remittance is a big bless for the country which is struggling to keep its foreign currency reserves in a healthy shape, an unnamed official was quoted as saying by the official news agency BSS on Monday.
It said this upward movement would come as a relief for Bangladesh after remittances slipped back into negative in 2021-22 fiscal year (July 2021-June 2022) for the first time in the last six fiscal years, as many remitters opted for the informal channels to send their money.
In its bid to boost shrinking forex reserves, the central bank of Bangladesh in recent months relaxed some rules to woo more remittances from millions of Bangladeshis living and working abroad.
The Bangladesh Bank (BB) in May issued a circular, saying non-resident Bangladeshis will not require presenting documents while sending over 5,000 U.S. dollars in remittance in order to qualify for the 2.5 percent cash incentive given by the government.
In order to mobilize funds from expatriate Bangladeshis, the bank on Monday set the annual interest rate ceiling on the non-resident foreign currency deposits.
A bank notice said the interest rate cap would be the benchmark reference rate plus 2.25 percent for the deposits with a tenure of one year to three years.
Officials said all the latest moves are expected to support Bangladesh's foreign currency reserves, which recently have come down to less than 40 billion U.S. dollars, still enough to cover the country's import bills for more than half a year.
Bangladesh's foreign exchange reserves crossed the 48-billion-dollar mark in August last year, the highest ever in the history of Bangladesh, due to a slowdown in imports and rising remittance and export earnings during the pandemic.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last week said the country would be able to meet 6-9 months of import expenditures with the existing foreign currency reserves. ■