Less than 1% of the remittance Bangladesh received in FY23 came from South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries, according to a Bangladesh Bank report on trade among SAARC nations. The majority of remittance inflows came from the Middle East, the European Union, and North America, while contributions from SAARC countries were negligible.
In FY23, Bangladesh’s total remittance inflow stood at $21.61 billion, with only $44.99 million coming from SAARC nations. Among these countries, the Maldives contributed the highest amount at 64.46%, followed by India at 26.25%, and Sri Lanka at 3.31%.
Despite the low remittance figures, Bangladesh’s import payments to SAARC countries totaled $10.33 billion in FY23, accounting for 15.07% of the country’s total import payments of $68.6 billion. The highest import payments within SAARC were made to India (91.84%) and Pakistan (6.76%).
The report also noted that of Bangladesh’s total export earnings of $43.57 billion, only 4.4% came from SAARC countries.
