Senior Reporter: Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal has ruled out the possibility of smuggling money abroad to take advantage of remittance incentives.
“I don’t think it’s a good proposal,” he told reporters after a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Wednesday. I don’t think that’s right. “
The research institute CPD had recommended checking whether any other money is entering the country in the name of remittances.
Remittances sent by expatriate workers are a major source of foreign exchange in Bangladesh. The government is offering a 2 percent incentive to encourage remittances.
In other words, if the expatriates send 100 rupees to the country, the government is giving a total of 102 rupees by adding 2 more rupees.
The finance minister said, “Some say that the country’s money is smuggled abroad and brought back to get incentives.
“I have tried to explain one thing over and over again, there are many sectors in the country that we give incentives to. If we give incentives to fish and vegetables, then why would they only target the remittance sector?
Explaining the reason for the suspicion, Mustafa Kamal said, “We have to see whether the money is coming in proportion to the amount of manpower we have abroad. More than that, we have to understand that something else is happening here. ”
Remittances, the country’s largest supplier of reserves, have declined in the last two months. Some experts say it increased as it came legally during the epidemic, but now it is not coming as a government because it is coming again through other means, including hundi.
When asked about this, the finance minister said, “In three months, less than one billion dollars has come. Last year it came to about 25 billion. At the current pace, it looks like 22 to 23 billion will come.
“The main reason for this is that the expatriate brothers and sisters who were working in different countries could not come back to the country during the time of Covid for various reasons. Now started going again. As a result, the issue of remittances will be resolved gradually. ”
Mustafa Kamal thinks that there is no other reason behind the decrease in remittances.
