Home ›› 13 May 2022 ›› Front
The World Bank has forecast a 2 per cent growth in remittance inflows for Bangladesh this year.
“In Bangladesh, except for a 24 per cent spike in March 2022 to mark the start of Ramadan, monthly remittance growth has been decreasing over the past eight months,” the global lender said in a report titled “Migration and Development Brief 36” on Tuesday.
Remittance inflows hit the $2 billion mark in April after 10 months as expatriates had sent more money to their families for celebrating Eid-ul-Fitr.
According to the Bangladesh Bank data, remittance in April was the highest since June 2021, when it was $1.94 billion. In May last year, Bangladesh received $2.17 billion in remittances.
Meanwhile, remittance earnings in the July-April period of the current financial year stood at $17.3 billion. In FY21, expatriates sent $24.77 billion.
Remittance flows to Pakistan increased by an impressive 20 per cent in 2021 to $31 billion while it grew by only 2.2 per cent to $22 billion in Bangladesh.
The World Bank report said remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) registered a robust gain of 8.6 per cent to reach $605 billion in 2021. In South Asia, it was $164 billion last year, which will reach $172 billion in 2022.
It also said global conditions during the first half of 2021 were supportive of the flow of remittances to developing countries.
The global gross domestic product (GDP) registered robust gains of 5.5–6 per cent in 2021, the fastest pace in four decades, emerging from the pandemic-induced recession of 2020.
South Asia enjoyed a 7 per cent gain in remittances, reaching $157 billion in 2021 and outstripping the strong performance and show of resilience during the 2020 worldwide economic downturn, the report said.
Despite remittance inflows, the World Bank has expressed concern about the South Asian nations because the remittance sourcing countries in the Middle East and North Africa are expected to be one of the most severely affected by the Ukraine war.
Oil exporters will see substantial terms of trade gains, but implications for demand for migrant labour – given shifts in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) policies – remain uncertain.
The World Bank data shows compared to 281 million in 2020, the stock of migrants and refugees in 2022 stands at around 286 million.
Considering that Ukraine has an even larger number of internally displaced persons, the stock of international migrants and refugees is likely to increase further this year.
A worrisome structural trend from the viewpoint of many LMICs, especially in the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, is the decline in the number of foreign workers in the GCC countries, particularly in Saudi Arabia.
The GCC countries will require more skilled workers but are likely to require fewer less-skilled foreign workers in the future, the report said.
