Bringing money home
DESPITE gloomy projections by several donor agencies, remittance flow from expatriate Bangladeshi workers has recorded a 22% growth compared to the last fiscal year, amid ongoing global recession. The amount remitted by them has touched the highest-ever peak of $10 billion in the just-concluded fiscal year.
Many countries all over the world also depend on remittance to keep their economy ticking in the global remittance market, the size of which is worth $450 billion.
According to the World Bank, India, China and Mexico retained their positions as top remittance recipients among the developing countries. India received a remittance of $45 billion from its expatriates during the last fiscal year, followed by China, which received $39 billion.
Other countries in the top-10 list of remittance recipients are Philippines, Poland, Nigeria, Romania, Egypt, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Although remittance growth has shown an upward trend in the last fiscal year, Bangladesh Bank has warned that this growth may not be sustainable, as this unusual rise may have actually happened because of the return of the large number of expatriates after losing their jobs.
According to Bangladesh Economic Review, more than 55 lakh Bangladeshis were working abroad till April 2009. But a huge number of them have returned in the meantime. In view of Mauritius's decision to send back 6,000 Bangladeshi workers, there is genuine fear of retrenchment turning into a deluge.
Malaysia cancelled the visas of 55,000 Bangladeshi workers a few months back, and Rumania has refused to accept more than 10,000 Bangladeshi workers. Such a devastating development in our overseas job sector calls for serious attention of the concerned authorities.
Bangladesh, a country where industrial investment is wretchedly stagnant and expansion in the agricultural and service sectors is simply not able to cope with the ever increasing pressure of unemployment, very badly needs to find employment opportunities abroad for its labourers.
Bangladeshis who seek manual jobs abroad are mostly poor and uneducated. In order to be able to feed their families two decent meals, they opt for any sort of job abroad by selling land to meet the high demands of the manpower agents. But even in that heart-rending deal, many of these people don't get jobs.
Some of them, as an aftermath, lost their lives abroad and others lost their last resort. Many families, who paid Tk.5 to 6 lakh by selling-off family properties at throw-away prices, were virtually ruined. Such fraudulent activities by these unscrupulous agents still exist, as they are not adequately taken to task by the government.
Foreign exchange earnings through remittance by the expatriate Bangladeshis have now overtaken the quantum of foreign exchange earnings through exported items. Manpower export has now reached the top of the country's capacity building agenda, both for foreign exchange earning and mitigation of the unemployment problem.
Sadly, the county did not have any elaborate overseas job policy although more than 55 lakh Bangladeshis are working abroad and their home-sent remittances account for a sizeable amount of our total foreign currency earnings. The current level of remittance in Bangladesh is able to offset about 65% of the trade deficit of the country, if the remittances are not used just for consumption.
In December 2001 the government initiated a move to prepare the overseas job policy, following which an inter-ministerial committee was formed to make recommendations.
In early 2003 the committee made a 44-point recommendation and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, on March 4, assigned a secretarial committee headed by the foreign secretary to finalise the draft.
Most countries, including the emerging giants China and India, have well-defined structures and policies in place with a view to help their expatriate workers. Any citizen of Sweden can get cash endowment of $30,000 to find jobs abroad, for which the World Bank provides the funds. Philippines has got an active retraining and allowance program for its retrenched migrants.
The record remittance flows to Bangladesh, even under global economic recession, imposes a good deal of responsibility on the concerned government bodies to formulate an elaborate overseas job policy, if they really optimise on global job opportunities. The government can do it by taking a cue from the countries with astounding success in the manpower export.
An elaborate overseas job policy has become essential to explore new job markets and also to retain the existing ones. As such, since a policy is linked to many important issues relating to manpower export, it should be formulated very soon for greater interest of the country.
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