DHAKA: Bangladeshis living and working abroad remitted home more than $3 billion in the first quarter of the current fiscal, a central bank official said.

Quoting provisional data, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) official told media that the flow of inward remittances in the first three months of the 2013-14 financial year (July 2013-June 2014) fell about 8 percent to $3,270.35 million.

After $1,238.49 million in July and $1,005.77 million in August, the amount of remittance in the last month stood at $1,026.09 million, down about 13 percent than that of the same period a year earlier, said the official who preferred to be unnamed.

Officials say inflow of remittances surged in July as expatriates sent more money to their relatives for the Muslim religious festival Eid-ul-Fitr.

They, however, expect inflow of remittances to boom this month as the Muslim-majority Bangladesh is set to celebrate Eid-ul-Azha, another big religious festival, which would be held in the South Asian country on or around Oct 16 based on the sighting of the new moon.

The inflow of remittances by about nine million non-resident Bangladeshis in the previous 2012-13 fiscal reached a record high of nearly $15 billion, about 13 percent higher than the like period a year ago.

Source: nydailynews
BDST: 1344 HRS, OCT 07, 2013
AKA/BSK