Remittance falls to four-month low
Remittance continues to slide with February's inflow of $1.13 billion -- the lowest in four months.
February's receipts were 4.2 percent lower year-on-year and 1.73 percent month-on-month, according to central bank statistics. In January, remittance stood at $1.15 billion, down 7.23 percent from a year earlier.
The slide in remittance has been blamed for the low global oil prices, which hit the incomes of Middle Eastern countries where most of Bangladeshi migrant workers reside. “Many projects have stalled. Many projects have been suspended. The income of our workers has gone down,” said a Bangladesh Bank official.
The devaluation of currencies of countries such as Australia, the UK, Canada, Singapore and Malaysia against the dollar also hit Bangladesh's remittance income, according to the official.
Though remittance decreased, foreign currency reserves are swelling and last month it crossed the $28 billion-mark.
The reasons for the rise are the growing exports and a slash in the cost of imports.
February's receipts take the total remittance inflow for the fiscal year so far to $9.77 billion, down 1.51 percent.
Remittance makes a large portion of the country's foreign currency reserves -- and a significant portion of it comes from workers living in oil-producing countries.
But the oil producing Middle Eastern countries have been under pressure since oil prices began to fall since mid-2014 after hitting $117 a barrel, because of a global supply glut from excessive US shale crude production.
Brent, the global crude benchmark, dropped to as low as $27.65 a barrel in mid-January this year, the lowest since 2003. The price stood at $37 yesterday.
The impact of crude's fall has already been felt by oil and gas revenue dependent Middle Eastern countries which have had to borrow to prop up their economies.
Bangladeshi migrant workers residing in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Libya and Iran together sent home $9.072 billion last fiscal year, up 8 percent year-on-year, according to figures from Bangladesh Bank. The amount accounted for about 60 percent of the total $15.32 billion sent in by the migrant workers in fiscal 2014-15.
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