Remittances dip for fourth month in a row

Remittances sent home by Bangladeshis working overseas dropped nearly 5 percent to $1.05 billion in November from a year earlier, the central bank said on Monday, slipping for the fourth straight month.

Millions of expatriate Bangladeshis remitted $5.55 billion from July to November, the first five months of the current financial year, down 9 percent from the same period in the previous year.

Strong remittances in recent years have helped build foreign exchange reserves to more than $17 billion.

Bangladesh received $14.46 billion in remittances from citizens working abroad in the 2012/13 fiscal year that ended in June, up 12.6 percent from a year earlier.

Remittances from about 9 million citizens abroad are critical for the impoverished nation and are a key source of foreign exchange alongside garments, which account for 80 percent of total export earnings of around $27 billion a year.

Economic growth is expected to slow to less than 6 percent in the year to June 2014 from 6 percent the previous year as political uncertainty and turmoil ahead of elections set for Jan. 5 take their toll.

-Reuters.

(Reporting by Ruma Paul; Editing by Prateek Chatterjee)