Dhaka, Jul 11 – Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Tuesday dismissed the recent media reports on the capital outflow from Bangladesh and a sharp rise in Bangladeshis’ deposits in Swiss banks.“I won’t say no money is sent out of the country. But the amount as reported by the media can be considered exaggerated in reality,” he told Parliament giving a statement under the rule-300 of the rules of procedure.
Muhith said the trade transaction through banking channel between Bangladesh and Switzerland has seen a substantial rise. “So, actually it’s not capital flight at all.”
Bangladesh Finance Intelligence Unit of Bangladesh Bank collected additional information on the issue and prepared a report attaching the highest importance to it, he said. “The report has already been submitted to the Finance Ministry.”
The Finance Minister said the media ran reports on the capital outflow with importance mentioning that the amount of money Bangladeshis deposited in Swiss banks increased to US$ 694.43 million in 2016, which was US$ 582.43 million in 2015.
As per the report, Swiss banks owed a total of Tk 5,560.5 crore to Bangladesh (Bangladeshi banks, clients and others), while Bangladesh owed a total of Tk 1,823 crore to Swiss banks in 2016.
Of Tk 5,560.5 crore, the share of personal deposit is only 7 percent (Tk 399.8 crore), he added.
In 2015, Swiss banks owed a total of Tk 4,627.1 crore to Bangladesh, while Bangladesh owed a total of Tk 867.6 crore to Swiss banks, he mentioned.
“So, the issue of capital outflow is nothing but a big issue in fact,” Muhith said, adding that he placed the statistics to remove the confusion over the capital flight. – UNB
