Monday 29 December 2008

BANGLADESH: Smoothening the way for greater remittance earnings

Syed Ashraful Hasan

THE greater amounts of remitted foreign currencies can boost up the country's foreign exchange reserve. This will, in turn, strengthen its import operations in support of economy-expanding activities or for undertaking developmental projects. The remittances will help the families of expatriate workers to fast climb out of poor standards of living to a better one.

It was estimated that remittances can double or treble within a short period of time to fulfil the above vision if only a proper coordinated and comprehensive policy is put into operation and also if the external environment under the impact of the prevailing global financial melt-down does not become unfavourable. Numerous potential workers are there who cannot go abroad due to some constraints. In many cases, they are unskilled and there is little demand for unskilled workers. Besides, it is not desirable also to send out unskilled workers as their wages are always found substantially lower than skilled workers. Thus, the government can play a very useful role by providing training opportunities in diverse areas. It can set up many skill training centres throughout the country at its own cost to facilitate the enrolment of large number of people in them. The establishment of such institutions ought to be looked upon essentially as a form of investment from which to get a great deal of more returns in the longer run than the expenditures involved in building and running them. Read more

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