Remittance inflow to Bangladesh increased marginally in April compared with that in the previous month due to Eid-ul-Fitr, which celebrated on April 11.
Expatriates usually send money in higher amounts to their families in the country during Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha, two biggest religious festivals of the Muslims.
In April, remittance inflow rose to $2.04 billion compared with that of $1.99 billion in March.
In the first 12 days of April, the country received around $900 million while it received around $362 million in the last four days.
In April 2023, the amount was $1.68 billion.
Bankers said that remittance might increase due to a rise in the dollar price on the market in recent weeks.
Expatriates now get Tk 116-18 a dollar.
However, many of them were sending money through informal channel as the dollar rate was over Tk 120 each on the open market, bankers said.
For the period from July to April in FY24, remittance inflow reached $19.11 billion compared with that of $17.57 billion in the same period in FY23.
The inter-bank dollar rate was Tk 110 as set by the Bangladesh Foreign Exchange Dealers鈥� Association and the Association of Bankers, Bangladesh.
However, the rate has been barely followed by the financial institutions and exchange houses.
The ongoing dollar crisis has significantly impacted business operations, with entities struggling to open necessary letters of credit for imports.
Responding to the severe dollar crisis, the Bangladesh Bank sold nearly $32.79 billion over the past 34 months.
Of this amount, $11.67 billion was allocated to banks in July-January of FY24, $13.5 billion in FY23 and $7.62 billion in FY22.
According to International Monetary Fund guidelines, the gross foreign exchange reserve in Bangladesh reached $19.95 billion on April 30.
The government and the central bank have taken various measures to increase remittance inflow through formal channels, BB officials said.
On January 1, 2022, the government increased cash incentive on remittances to 2.5 per cent from 2 per cent to encourage migrants to send more money through the banking channel.
Taking the dollar shortage into consideration, the Bangladesh Bank has recently issued a circular saying that expatriates do not have to show documents to send any amount of money to the country.