Bangladesh receives nearly $15bn remittance

The inflow of remittances by millions of non-resident Bangladeshis in the 2012-13 fiscal year concluded in June reached a record high of nearly 15 billion U.S. dollars, about 13 percent higher than the same period a year ago, an official said Thursday. "Remittances from the Bangladeshi wage earners abroad stood at about 14,460 million U.S. dollars during the 2012-13 fiscal year ( July 2012-June 2013)," the Bangladesh Bank (BB) official told Xinhua. The official who preferred to be unnamed said inflow of remittance in the last fiscal year was a continuation of the trend in the previous fiscal year, when the country received a record 12. 85 billion U.S. dollars. According to the official, the inflow of remittance, one of the key sources of foreign exchange for the impoverished South Asian nation, reached 1.058 billion U.S. dollars in the final month of the last fiscal year. Although remittance inflows from nearly 9 million Bangladeshis, living and working in about 100 foreign countries, set a new record in the 2012-13 fiscal year, the growth rates still remained moderate compared to the previous years. Over the last few years until 2009-2010 fiscal, the country's remittance growth hovered around 15-30 percent. Most of the remittances come from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Kuwait, Britain, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Singapore, Bahrain, Italy and Australia, according to the bank. In his budget speech, Bangladeshi Finance Minsiter AMA Muhith said last month that presently around 8.6 million Bangladeshi workers are employed in 157 countries.