The $1.08 billion received by the country in the month, however, is the lowest in two and a half years and 24.61 percent lower than the remittance inflow in the same month last year.
“We didn’t expect the remittance will exceed the $1 billion mark after we received $945 million in 29 days,” Bangladesh Bank Executive Director Kazi Saidur Rahman said, pointing out that the expatriates sent $136 million on the last day of the month. “The amount is not bad at all,” he added.
Researcher Ahsan H Mansur, however, is not so optimistic about the coming days. “Maybe the migrant workers are sending money from their savings. But even the oil rich countries in the Middle East, where we have most Bangladeshi workers, are facing a deepening crisis as oil price has dropped sharply,” he said.
In March, the expatriate workers sent home around $1.29 billion, with a 13.34 percent year-on-year drop.
More than 10 million Bangladeshis work abroad. But over 666,000 of them returned home between January and mid-March as the coronavirus spread to all parts of the world. ♦
