Staff Correspondent: Foreigners working in Bangladesh remitted a record $101 million or more than Tk 8.50 billion through legal channel in 2021, according to the latest data of the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (KNOMAD).
KNOMAD is an initiative of the World Bank working in close collaboration with the Global Forum on Migration and Development and the Global Migration Group.
Remittance sent by foreigners to their home countries stands at 0.02 per cent of Bangladesh’s gross domestic product (GDP).
According to KNOMAD, foreigners sent remitted $101 million from Bangladesh in 2021, up by 6.3 per cent from 95 million in 2020.
Foreigners working in Bangladesh remitted $12 million in 2012, with the remittance outflow seeing a rise throughout the next decade. Foreigners sent $57 million and $83 million in 2018 and 2019 respectively, the KNOMAD data shows.
KNOMAD data, however, does not include the remittance that foreigners working in Bangladesh sent home through informal channel.
According to a 2020 report of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), Tk 260 billion is laundered from Bangladesh annually on the pretext of foreign workers’ salary and allowance.
At least 250,000 foreigners work in Bangladesh. Of them, 160,000 foreigners came to the country on tourist visa and worked here and they dodged the government about Tk 120 billion in revenue, the TIB report said.
