The government is actively working to increase the remittance flow and sending more workers abroad, especially skilled workers, Finance Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam said at a roundtable in the city Saturday, reports UNB.

Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI) and Royal Danish Embassy jointly organised the roundtable on "Strategy for Increasing Annual Migrant Remittances in Bangladesh" in the BEI conference room.

Danish Ambassador in Dhaka Einar H Jensen was the special guest at the roundtable, chaired by BEI president Farooq Sobhan.

The Finance Adviser said that the flow of remittance through banking channels has increased substantially. "We've to make the banking channels more efficient and service-oriented to bring in more remittance," he said.

Aziz underscored the need for strengthening coordination among the ministries and other government institutions to send more skilled workers abroad from Bangladesh.

"This is hard to achieve, but someone has to take the lead," he said indicating the Labour Welfare Ministry for such a role.

The Finance Adviser said the government initiated some works to send more skilled workers abroad and to look after the welfare of the expatriate workers.

"But clearly there is a long way to go," he said, assuring that the government would do whatever is needed to increase remittance and ensure welfare of the expatriate Bangladeshis.

The Danish Ambassador emphasised on better coordination as well as sending more skilled manpower abroad to achieve a good remittance flow.

Two reports were presented at the roundtable. BEI president Farooq Sobhan presented the report on 'Policy and Public Benefit

Interventions to Achieve Remittances of US$ 30 billion Per Annum by 2015'.

Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Professor and Project Director of DANIDA Remittance Project Sougata Ray presented the another report on 'Making Bangladesh A Leading Manpower Exporting Country and Achieving Annual Remittances of US$ 30 billion by 2015'.

BEI and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Calcutta, have conducted the studies and prepared the reports at the request of the Danish Government.

Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) and the Royal Danish Embassy in Dhaka initiated the studies to recommend measures to be undertaken by the government to achieve an annual migrant remittance of US$ 30 billion per annum by 2015.