Despite Eid, country witnessed average remittance inflow

Staff Reporter  :
Remittance inflow in the country reached $1.27 billion during the first 21 days of April as Bangladeshis working abroad sent money to families for celebrating Eid ul-Fitr, according to the data from Bangladesh Bank yesterday.
In first three weeks of April, expatriates sent an average of $ 60.50 million per day, compared to $65.09 million in March and $ 53.37 million in February referring no real jump-up of country’s inward remittances flow during the Ramzan and Eid festival as migrants usually sent higher amounts of money to their near and dear ones to celebrate the festival.
The official figure shows that the inward flow of remittance was $ 476.8 million in the first seven days of April, from April 8 to 14 it was $ 481.8 million and in the third week of April $ 313.00 million.
Analyzing the data, it is reflects that the inflow of remittances from overseas workers was high at the beginning and middle of Ramzan and in later phases, gradually it was declining. It is expected that the remittances will further decrease in the last week of the current month.
Due to this, foreign remittance will not attend its expected level despite the Ramzan and Eid festival. In fact, this April will going to be marked as an average standard month in terms of receiving remittance from Bangladeshis working abroad.
According to experts, inward flow of remittance in April is not fulfilling the desired level, especially when Ramzan and Eid festival are there. As inflow was over $2 billion in March, the inflow in April would have been higher this month.
Economic think tank Policy Exchange Chairman, Dr. Masrur Reaz told journalists that a single month’s performance is insufficient to make a comprehensive assessment of remittance inflow trends.
Earlier, remittance inflow crossed $2 billion marks after six months in the current financial year of 2022-2023 and escalated by 29.29 percent in March than the previous month (February).
Meanwhile, in the first nine months from July to March of the current fiscal year FY23, total amount of remittance is around $ 16.03 billion. And in the financial year of 2021-2022 and 2020-2021 expatriates sent home $ 21.03 billion and $24.77 billion respectively.