A conference titled 'Remittances and Expatriates: Development of Bangladesh' will be held in The Hague, Netherlands tomorrow.
The aim of the conference is to make Bangladeshis living in Europe to be aware of the better and effective investment of their hard earned money in Bangladesh and at the same time draw attention of relevant Bangladeshi authorities to attract European Bangladeshi investment in their country of origin.
Ambassador of Bangladesh to the Netherlands Ismat Jahan will inaugurate the conference. The Hague-based Bangladesh Support Group (BASUG) is the chief organiser of the conference supported by Oxfam-Novib, ICCO and the Seva Network Foundation.
Remittances are now being considered as one of the key contributors to poverty reduction in developing countries like Bangladesh. According to an estimate, a total of nearly US$ 93 billion were remitted to developing countries in 2003. The remittances sent by the migrants to their countries of origin are the second-largest financial flow to developing countries next to foreign direct investment.
In 1999, Bangladesh was the 6th largest remittance receiving country in the world in absolute figures. Bangladesh receives 2 percent of the total global flow of the remittances, which accounts for 12 percent of the official remittances flowing into South Asia.
More than 200,000 Bangladeshi people leave their country annually to work in other countries. In the last 30 years (1979-2006) 4 million Bangladeshi temporary labour migrants left their country, according to a latest report reaching here in the Netherlands on 18 January 2006 (Channel S news).
More than 1 million Bangladeshi people permanently live abroad. The total amount of remittances by this group of emigrated Bangladeshis came to around US$ 2 billion annually between 2000 and 2002, which again rose to US$ 3 billion the following year i.e.
in 2003.
The conference discussion will cover topics and issues of remittances, means of transfer, utilisation of remitted amount in investment, economic activities, migration policy, rights of the migrants, UN convention on the protection of rights of all migrant workers and members of their families, illegal migration, and condition of undocumented Bangladeshis in foreign prisons.
The conference will be attended by expatriates or migrants, representatives of migrant organisations, migrant businesspeople who are involved in investment not only in the Netherlands but also in countries of their origin, academics, experts and Bangladeshi migrant representatives from various organisations in the UK, Germany, Spain, Sweden and Belgium.
