Bangladesh approves new banks to boost inward remittances

DHAKA (Xinhua): The Central Bank of Bangladesh Wednesday approved a proposal to set up three new commercial banks aimed at boosting inward remittances from the country’s millions of people living and working abroad.

 The board of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) gave its nod to setting up of the NRB (Non-Resident Bangladeshis) banks at a meeting Wednesday afternoon.

 A senior BB official said with the establishment of the new banks, the number of private and foreign banks in Bangladesh will rise to 50 from existing 47 which are already in operation in the country.

 He said the contribution of NRBs by way of remitting valuable foreign exchange enables the country to maintain a stable external value of the local currency Taka.

 “The Establishment of the banks by NRB investors will help us to receive more remittances in future from expatriate Bangladeshis as they will be encouraged to send home more money,” said the official who preferred to be unnamed.

Bangladesh’s overall remittance surged to nearly 10 billion US dollars during the first three quarters of the current fiscal year (July 2011-June 2012), posting 10.67 per cent growth year on year.

The amount of remittance from about 7 million Bangladeshis in the last fiscal year spanning from July 2010 to June 2011, stood at 11.649 billion US dollars against 10.987 billion US dollars in the same period a year earlier, the BB data showed.

Remittance, a major source of foreign exchange for Bangladesh, contributes around 13 per cent to its national GDP or gross domestic product, Khandker Mosharraf Hossain, the country’s expatriates’ welfare minister, said recently.