Bangladesh Remittances of Migrant Workers to Soar at US$ 30b by 2015

Dhaka, Bangladesh | February 22, 2008 by D-8 Secretariat

Highlighting the importance of migrant remittance as the major source of national revenue as well as enhancing national economic growth, speakers at a function held recently in Bangladesh underscored the need for taking effective measures for gearing up the annual flow of remittance.

“The flow of annual migrant remittance could be increased if some concrete measures were taken for creating more job opportunities abroad and improvement in remittance facilities through banking channels,” they mentioned. Their observations came at seminar titled ” Strategy for Increasing Annual Migrant Remittances,” organised by Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI) at Gulshan in the city.

Farooq Sobhan, president, BEI presented a report on “Policy and Public Benefit Interventions to help Bangladesh Achieve an Annual Migrant Remittances of US $ 30 billion by 2015.” The function was also attended, among others, by Md Abdul Matin Chowdhury, Secretary, Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment and Ashfaque Hamid, secretary, ministry of labour and employment, Einar H Jensen, Ambassador, Royal Danish Embassy, Dr CR Abrar, Professor of International Relations Department of Dhaka University.

They said that every year over 3000 Bangladeshis go abroad for jobs and this number has been growing rapidly. They also said that Bangladesh has emerged as a notable exporter of manpower and a steady source of human resources to a number of foreign countries.The contribution of remittances to Bangladesh by the migrant workers and diaspora has been significant both socially and economically.

The Bangladeshi overseas workers as per official estimates sent US $ 4.8 billion in 2006 which was 25 per cent higher than that in the previous year. The unofficial estimates indicate a much higher figure of remittances of over US $ 8 billion. Bangladesh currently has a share of about 3 per cent of the global inflow of remittances.

“From its current position Bangladesh has to increase its remittance income by 25 per cent year on year to generate remittances income of approximately US $ 30 billion in 2015,” they said. The findings of the study are creating new avenues of employment abroad, improvement of organisational effectiveness, training and human resources development, introduction of new policies and revision of existing policies and implementation of more welfare activities for the expatriate workers and engaging Bangladeshi diaspora in the development process.

D-8 Organisation will hold a first D-8 Working Group of Migrant Workers, Remittances, and Microfinance in Bangladesh this year. During the working visit to several international organisation in Geneva and Rome last month, D-8 Secretary General has formally invited a number of potential participants from IFAD, and OFID to share ideas on how to optimize this growing sector for the benefit of the D-8 countries.

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