DHAKA, Dec 02, 2021 (BSS) - Bangladesh has become the 8th largest 
remittance-receiving country and the 6th largest migrant-sending country in 
the world, according to the World Migration Report 2022.

  The UN agency for International Organization for Migration (IOM) on 
Wednesday launched its flagship World Migration Report 2022 which reveals a 
dramatic increase in internal displacement due to disaster, conflict, and 
violence at a time when global mobility ground to a halt due to Covid-19 
travel restrictions.

  The report focuses on developments in migration over the last two-year 
period, with an emphasis on providing analysis that takes into account 
historical and contemporary factors. 

   As per the report, there were around 281 million international migrants in 
the world in 2020.

  The report highlights that in 2020, 7.40 million Bangladeshi migrants lived 
abroad. Despite living beyond the country's borders, Bangladesh's diaspora 
has continued to play a key role in the country's development.

 The World Bank estimates that the Bangladeshi population abroad sent home 
over US$18 billion in 2019, with 73 per cent coming from those working in 
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

  These remittances account for over 6.0 per cent of GDP, representing the 
country's second-largest source of foreign income.

  The efforts by policymakers to encourage and facilitate the sending of 
remittances have greatly aided the remittance landscape in Bangladesh.

  The Central Bank of Bangladesh more than tripled the ceiling on its 2019 
cash incentive scheme - whereby remittance beneficiaries receive a 2.0 per 
cent bonus on transfers made using formal systems - up to $5,000. 

  Additionally, some commercial banks are providing an additional one per 
cent incentive to increase the attractiveness of sending remittances even 
more.

  The number of air passengers globally dropped 60 per cent in 2020 to 1.8 
billion (down from 4.5 billion in 2019) while at the same time internal 
displacement due to disaster, conflict, and violence rose to 40.5 million (up 
from 31.5 million in 2019).

  According to the report, the number of international migrants has grown 
from 84 million globally in 1970 to 281 million in 2020, although when global 
population growth is factored in, the proportion of international migrants 
has only inched up from 2.3 per cent to 3.6 per cent of the world's 
population.

 The vast majority of people globally (96.4 per cent) reside in the country 
in which they were born. Due to COVID-19, the number of international 
migrants in 2020 was lower, by around 2 million, than it otherwise would have 
been, the report added.