Dhaka: Bangladesh Bank (BB) on Saturday awarded 31 non-resident Bangladeshis (NRBs) for sending home the highest amount of remittance and investing in bonds in 2014.

The central bank for the first time also awarded two exchange houses for their contributions to help increase remittance inflow to the country, with providing NRBs necessary services for sending their hard-earned money home.

Governor Atiur Rahman handed over award plaques and certificates of the “Bangladesh Bank Remittance Award” at a function at the Bangladesh Bank Training Academy (BBTA) in the capital with BB deputy governor SK Sur Chowdhury in the chair.

Addressing the programme, the governor briefed about the central bank’s measures to ease the process and lower the cost of remitting money from overseas to Bangladesh and assured that BB would continue these efforts in future.

He thanked the NRBs and banks and financial institutions to help increase remittance inflow to the country, which resulted in the record $25 billion foreign exchange reserves, well enough to meet country’s seven months import demand.

Last year, BB awarded 24 NRBs, of them 20 were awarded as the highest remittance senders while the rest four got the award for investing in bonds.