Despite the ongoing crisis of coronavirus epidemic, the country’s upward trend in expatriate income continues. In just 12 days of this month, the expatriates have sent remittances of 106 crore 6 lakh US dollars to the country.

A press release sent by Gazi Touhidul Islam, Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Ministry of Finance, revealed the matter on Monday (November 16).

According to the press statement, Bangladesh earlier has never received so much remittance in just 12 days of a single month. This is a rare event in the history of Bangladesh.

In the current fiscal year of 2020-21, the total remittances from July to November 12 reached Bangladesh 9.891 billion US dollars. At the same time in the last fiscal year of 2019-2020, remittances came 6.897 billion, that is about 43.42 percent more than the same period of the last year. Various measures including timely 2 percent cash incentive by the government have been playing an important role in this upward trend in expatriate income.

When asked, Finance Minister A H M Mostafa Kamal said, “The world falls into a major economic crisis due to the unexpected shock and effects of Covid-19 pandemic. During this time, our remittance fighters have landed in role of driver by sending money despite difficulties in keeping our economy afloat.”

He said, “In the budget of 2019-2020 fiscal year, it was announced that 2 percent cash incentive will be given if remittances are sent legally from abroad. Soon after that, when remittances flow started increasing, many have been saying that these are not right, will not be lasted, are not sustainable.”

He further said, “Some people started making various comments while remittances were being received at an incredible pace in the first three months of the current financial year. In line with those people, various international organisations also started saying that this flow is not right, it will not be sustainable. But the flow of remittance growth since the announcement of incentive to date has proved their predictions were wrong and proved once again that we were right.”