Bangladesh expatriate remittances up 55.6 percent

Bangladesh received $732.98 million in remittances from expatriate workers in August, up 55.6 percent from a year earlier but down from a record high of $820.7 million in July, the central bank said on Thursday. Remittances hit a record $7.9 billion in the 2007/08 financial year that ended in June, nearly a third higher than the previous fiscal year.
Booming economies in the Middle East and the Gulf region, as well as an ageing population in European countries and rising skills of Bangladeshi workers were driving demand for Bangladeshi labour, officials said. The central bank expects the inflow of remittances to touch an annual $10 billion over the next year, boosting a key source of foreign exchange for the impoverished majority-Muslim country.