DHAKA, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Remittances are skyrocketing to cushion Bangladesh's merchandise trade deficit which widened to 17.23 billion U.S. dollars in the first 10 months of the current 2020-21 fiscal year.
The surge in the country's trade deficit is mainly driven by exponential growth in imports with comparative slower pace in exports proceeds.
In the July 2020-April 2021 period, the trade deficit was over 21 percent higher than in the same period of the previous fiscal year 2019-20, the latest Bangladesh Bank (BB) data showed.
The country's imports payment totaled 48.56 billion U.S. dollars, up about 13 percent year on year, in the July-April period of the current fiscal year, while earnings from exports stood at 31.33 billion U.S. dollars, up 8.97 percent.
Bangladesh's trade deficit in the past fiscal year soared by about 12 percent year on year to nearly 18 billion U.S. dollars.
A Bangladesh Bank official said the country's export sector suffered huge setback amid the outbreak of COVID-19 in the initial months of this fiscal year, July 2020-June 2021.
As the growth in imports outpaced exports which took the heaviest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, trade deficit widened so far.
Luckily, according to the official who didn't give his name, the country's exporters are now breathing a sigh of relief as work orders for major garment products from retailers come back driven by a rebound in foreign demand amid economic recovery from COVID-19 in parts of the world.
With 3.11 billion U.S. dollars export income in May, up 112.11 percent compared with the same month a year earlier, Bangladesh's total exports in the first 11 months of the current 2020-21 fiscal year reached 35.18 billion U.S. dollars, up 13.64 percent year on year.
The BB official said skyrocketing growth in inflow remittances helped Bangladesh cushion the impact of ballooning trade deficit.
Bangladesh's remittances hit an all-time high of nearly 23 billion U.S. dollars in July-May period of the current fiscal year 2020-21 ending this month. Enditem
