Bangladesh received a record $937.91 million in remittances from workers overseas in August, ahead of Eid al-Fitr festival, up 30 percent from a year earlier, central bank officials said on Sunday.
The expatriate incomes, a key source of foreign exchange for the cash-strapped economy, hit $9.7 billion in last fiscal year that ended in June, 22.3 percent higher than the previous year, in spite of the global economic slump.
In July and August, the first two months of the current fiscal year, remittances from 6 million expat Bangladeshis totalled 1.82 billion, 18 percent higher than the same period in previous year.
Millions of Bangladeshis are dependent on money sent by relatives working overseas, mainly in the Middle East, Europe and the United States, and it is a key plank of the economy.
Officials said strong remittances helped offset the impact of the trade shortfall and kept the overall balance of payments in surplus. On September 1, the country's foreign exchange reserves surged to an all-time high of more than $9 billion.
However, analysts fear the growth in remittances could slow down in the 2009/10 fiscal year as the number of workers leaving for overseas jobs is declining due to the impact of the recession in major markets. Overseas employment has fallen in past months due to declining demand in major labour markets, including Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Malaysia, and the flow of migrant workers returning home has also increased.
A study commissioned by the World Bank showed that the flow of remittances would reach $10.87 billion in the current financial year as the majority-Muslim country is expected to send 610,000 workers abroad, with the help of increased oil prices in the oil-producing countries.