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The war panic among the expatriate Bangladesh is receded further as only 81 workers returned home from Kuwait on Sunday, making a total of about 500 in four days after the US-led attack on Iraq began, the Financial Express reported Monday.
The Bangladesh is now staying in the Middle East are less interested to return home as the fear over widespread war in the region lessened considerably.
Bangladesh embassies in the Middle East countries opened cells to cope with any urgent situation. But out of the 175,000 Bangladesh is living in Kuwait and Jordan, only a handful of them expressed their interest to return home.
Economists and business leaders expressed their worries about a possible economic setback with the war dragging on, as the Middle East is the biggest source of oil and remittance of the country.
Moreover, the Gulf has been a major trading partner with Bangladesh, involving US$700 million in annual trade.
Of the 2.4 billion-plus remittance inflow last year, Middle East countries shared over 75 percent.
Commerce Minister Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, however, said Sunday the US-led military strike on Iraq "has not yet hit the country's external trade anyway, but the government is cautious about the adversities of a prolonged war."
(Xinhua News Agency March 24, 2003)
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