Our global remittance ranking

Among 10 major remittance recipient nations, Bangladesh has been pushed one notch down to eighth position, according to a World Bank report.
Even so, in absolute terms Bangladesh's total receipt this year will be around US$14 billion, which will be US$2 billion higher compared to the projection made by WB last year.
In spite of the increase in its remittance receipt, the country still trails behind quite a few other competitors, even though there has been a significant rise in the overall flow of remittance globally. A WB estimate says, the flow of remittance towards developing countries is projected to reach US$406 billion in 2012, which is a 6.5 per cent increase over that of the previous year. And in 2013 and 2014, the upward trend will continue by 2 per cent over each previous year.
Overall, the global trend is continuous growth in remittance flow towards the developing countries.
But not to be crowded out by new aspirants like Nigeria and to have a bigger share of this ever-growing flow of foreign remittances, Bangladesh will have first to improve the quality of manpower for export. The way to do it is by enhancing its skills in diverse trades. At the same time, it will also have to explore newer markets.
The government will have to take up programmes to train overseas job-seekers in keeping with demands.
While we have to increase the capacity of our foreign diplomatic missions to handle the task, the private sector, too, needs to be encouraged to launch training programmes as well as search for markets abroad.
Towards enhancing foreign remittance receipts, some impediments will have to be removed including lowering of service costs. Especially, considering the significant facilitating role played by mobile telephony in increasing remittance flow, such form of banking will have to be expanded.