We expect the authorities concerned to continue to be proactive and devise the appropriate policies and incentives
The importance of remittances for our economy can never be stated enough; each and every year, in addition to our RMG industry, our expat workers prove themselves to be one of the foundations of our economy, with the remittance they send being one of our key earners of foreign currency.
And on that note, the fact that sending remittance through mobile financial services (MFS) such as bkash has increased by 70% year on year is certainly good news. WIth our aim of slowly but surely becoming a cashless society as we march towards a smart, prosperous, and developed Bangladesh, a shift to legal and recognized means of sending remittances is no doubt a step in the right direction.
However, while there is progress, and credit must be given to the authorities concerned for implementing incentives to encourage this progress, what is also concerning is the reduction in remittances over the past month — an almost 20% drop — compared to the previous month. While the nature of remittance is hardly linear, nevertheless, any serious dips must always be evaluated by the relevant authorities and stakeholders.
Moreover, what remains most disheartening is that nearly half of all remittance in the nation is through illegal channels, robbing our economy of tax revenue- an area where we have historically struggled. We also fail to comprehend the full picture of our remittance with these illegal channels generating no data with which we can make policy changes.
It would not be incorrect to say that our expat workers are yet to be incentivized to send their money through legal channels back to the country. Moving forward, we expect the authorities concerned to continue to be proactive and devise the appropriate policies and incentives so that Bangladesh can fully reap the benefits of our expat workers abroad.
