Incentives not required any longer: Labour Minister

With the US dollar reaching new heights against the rupee following the floating of the currency, Labour Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva opined that special incentives are no longer required to lure in worker remittances.

 “As US$/rupee exchange rate has reached 280, migrant workers can get Rs.280 per every US$ remitted. Therefore, no incentive is needed,” de SIlva told Mirror Business.

Two days after the Central Bank (CB) floated the rupee, the Finance Ministry announced an extra Rs.20 per every US dollar remitted between now and the Sinhala-Tamil Avurudu season by migrant workers.

However, the Ministry is yet to specify how it is going to implement the incentive scheme.

Prior to floating of the rupee, the Cabinet approved a proposal by Minister de Silva to increase the incentive given on a migrant worker dollar to Rs.38 from Rs.10.

Last year, worker remittance income dropped to US$ 5.49 billion hitting a 10-year low mainly due to migrant workers moving to unofficial money transfer channels, which offered higher conversion rates for their foreign currencies.