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Flow of remittances starting to increase
Rtv news
12 Aug 2024, 19:49
Photo: Collected
The flow of remittances sent by expatriates has started to increase.
According to the latest report of Bangladesh Bank, in the first 10 days of this August, remittances in the country reached 482.77 million dollars.
Before the fall of Sheikh Hasina's government on August 5 and one day after, remittances came to the country of 95.65 million dollars. And from August 7 to 10, remittances came to 387.12 million dollars. Two of those days were weekends.
Sector stakeholders said that expatriates announced a remittance shutdown last month due to the quota reform movement. Due to this, the remittance flow decreased in that month. Which continued in the first week of this month. However, remittance flows increased after the fall of the government.
Earlier last July, the month after the students' agitation, the inflow of expatriates decreased significantly.
Expatriates sent remittances of USD 1.9 billion in July, which is the lowest in the last 10 months.
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Bangladesh receives 13 thousand crore remittance in 17 days
Sheikh Hasina left the country after resigning from the post of Prime Minister on August 5 in the face of student uprising. Since then, the amount of remittances coming through legal channels has increased.
In continuation of this, 13 thousand 374 crores came in the first 17 days of August.
The updated information of Bangladesh Bank says that the remittance received till the first 3 days of this month is 9 crore 56 lakh 50 thousand dollars. And remittance received from August 4 to 10 is 38 crore 71 lakh 20 thousand dollars.
Bangladesh Bank also says that in the first 17 days of August, remittances have arrived through legal means of 114 crore 42 lakh 20 thousand dollars. In Bangladeshi currency (as per dollar 118 taka) which amounts to more than 13 thousand 374 crore taka.
At this time, 15 crore 29 lakh dollars came through the state-owned banks, about 3 crore 77 lakh dollars came through one of the 2 specialized banks (Krishi Bank). More than 94 crore 14 lakh dollars came through private banks and 2.15 million dollars came through foreign banks.
The total number of banks which did not receive any remittance during the discussed period is 10. These include Bangladesh Development Bank or BDBL, the specialized Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank (RAKUB). Private Sector Community Bank, Citizen Bank, ICB Islami Bank, Padma Bank, Shimanto Bank. Foreign sector banks include Habib Bank, National Bank of Pakistan, State Bank of India and Woori Bank.
Incidentally, expatriates had announced to send money in hundi expressing no confidence in the recently departed Sheikh Hasina government. This suddenly reduces the speed of remittance. But after the fall of the government, that picture changed. Remittances are coming in a legitimate way.
Bengal Commercial Bank holds Board of Directors meeting
Bengal Commercial Bank plc held its 32nd meeting on Wednesday (August 21).
Bengal Commercial Bank's Chairman presided over the meeting at head office in capital's Gulshan area.
Vice Chairman Alhaj Mahbubul Alam and Engineer Golam Mohammed Alomgir along with other directors, Managing Director and Chief Executive Tarik Morshed, Additional Managing Director, Deputy Managing Director and Company Secretary also participated in the meeting.
Expatriate income over $2b in 28 days
Bangladesh is showing an upward trend again in remittances sent by expatriates and exceeded $2 billion in 28 days of August.
The relevant department of the Central Bank informed this information on Thursday (August 29).
According to Bangladesh Bank's updated report on remittance as of 28 August, expatriate Bangladeshis sent $2.07 billion to the country through the formal channel. In the same period of August 2023, the remittance inflow was $1.43 billion.
Bangladesh witnessed the lowest remittance in the last 10 months in July 2024 amid the student movement. In July, the country's remittance was about $1.91 billion.
Bangladesh Bank officials said expatriates are now being encouraged to send remittances through legal channels. They are being made aware. We hope that more remittances will come in a legal way in future.
Exports shown to be $26 billion higher in 23 months
There is a large discrepancy between actual exports and data provided by the government agency Export Promotion Bureau (EPB). In the last 23 months, the company has shown more exports of 26.40 billion dollars. This came to light after Bangladesh Bank released actual export data.
Bangladesh Bank released the actual export data for the financial years 2022-23 and 2023-24 on Thursday (August 29). It showed that in the fiscal year 2023-24, the exports decreased by 5.90 percent to 40.81 billion dollars compared to the previous fiscal year.
EPB last released export data last May. The company had shown exports of $107.10 billion in 23 months, although the actual exports were $80.70 billion. Exports in 23 months showed a high of 26.40 billion dollars.
Under pressure from the IMF, Bangladesh Bank started publishing monthly actual export data last April. After that, a large discrepancy was found in the EPB data. EPB has since stopped publishing export data. The company usually publishes the information in the week following the end of each month. But even though August is coming to an end, the information of June has not been published so far.
GFI reports / 80,000 crores smuggled from Bangladesh every year
Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington-based financial sector research organization, said that an average of 7.53 billion 37 million dollars or Tk 80,000 crores have been smuggled abroad from Bangladesh every year.
The organization says, 'Every year, an average of 80 thousand crore has been smuggled from this small third world country! A large part of which is smuggled in the guise of international trade.'
Economists say that the main challenge now is to recover the laundered money anyway. They also said that for the past few years, the economy of the country has been suffering from various factors including dollar crisis, fragile economy, inflation, one of the reasons of which is money laundering. Lakhs of crores have been smuggled to different countries of the world in various ways including global trade manipulation, hundi, smuggling.
According to the Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD), in the last one and a half years, more than 100 thousand crores have been smuggled to different countries of the world through only 24 loan scams embezzled from 19 domestic banks. Not only individual initiatives, several financial institutions and public, private banks are also indirectly involved in the money laundering process.
Several years ago, Bangladesh signed several agreements with many countries to recover the money smuggled. Economists say that the current government can continue those agreements and joint ventures with related countries.
Budget shorten plan, hope to save Tk 1,00000 crores
To control inflation and reduce the pressure on foreign exchange reserves, the current interim government has planned to revise the budget for the current financial year. As part of the plan, there could be major changes in the budget, which could reduce wasteful expenditure by up to Tk 1 lakh crores.
Earlier last week, an official of the Finance Ministry said that formal discussions on this issue may begin in September.
He says there is little scope for fiscal budget cuts, so most of the changes will be from the Annual Development Program (ADP). Because most of the Ministries and Departments usually do not spend a large part of their budget allocation.
The Awami League government formulated a budget of Tk 797,000 crores for the current financial year before they were ousted by a mass coup on August 5. Out of this, ADP was Tk 2 lakh 65 thousand crores.
LPG prices hiked again
Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) fixed the new price of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) for the current month (September).
BERC revealed in a circular that a 12 kg LPG cylinder's price has been increased by Tk 44. It will now cost Tk 1,421
The new price will be effective from 6 pm today (Monday).
Earlier, last month (August) the price of a 12 kg cylinder was increased by 11 taka. It cost Tk 1,377.
It is to be noted that, the price of LPG and Autogas decreased five times last year.
In January, March, April, June, and July last year, the prices of LPG and Autogas decreased.
However, the prices increased in February, May, August, September, October, November and December last year.
