Abu Dhabi: An awareness campaign encouraging Bangladeshi expatriates working in the UAE to send their remittances to their home country through legal channels was launched in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday with the Bangladesh ambassador to the UAE in attendance.
The campaign is being launched by UAE Exchange with the support of the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment of Bangladesh and the Embassy of Bangladesh. The initiative will run for three months starting from the New Year, and will take place across the UAE with over 500,000 booklets set to be distributed among low-income workers informing them of their financial rights and the benefits of using legal money exchanges and banks in sending their remittances.
“Bangladesh is a country of over 160 million people, and the government considers the population as a human resource, including those who live and work abroad as they have a big role to play in participating in the development of the country,” said Mohammad Imran, Bangladeshi Ambassador to the UAE.
“Foreign currencies received through legal channels are used by the government for various programmes in the fields of health and education to benefit the poor people and also to develop the infrastructure of our country. If we want to see our economy grow and become strong, we must opt for legal channels for transferring our hard earned money,” he added.
Ambassador Imran explained that low-income workers are often targeted by unofficial middlemen who take advantage of them either due to debts or a lack of financial awareness.
“The majority of Bangladeshi workers [in the UAE] are low-income workers and come from rural areas. Many of them often have to borrow or sell their assets to be able to migrate abroad. Once they arrive they have to repay their debts and often find themselves lured by unofficial sources to send their money back home.
“Their lack of sufficient knowledge make them easy prey and victims [for middlemen]… [this is why] I find it highly appropriate to make workers aware of using legal and official channels to send their money home,” he added.
Promoth Manghat, chief executive officer at UAE Exchange, explaining how the campaign would work, said that it would mainly involve face-to-face interactions with the workers and passing on the relevant material they needed.
“We are not planning to do something revolutionary, but rather we want to do small basic things like going out and simply talking to as many workers that are in the UAE.
“The campaign is going to invest a lot of time, money, and effort to create the awareness [among the workers]. We want to make sure that the workers take advantage of the full financial system that is available to them, and so that they can contribute for their country,” he added.
