Vietnam Remittances +19.4 per cent to US$8 Bln in 2008
Vietnam reportedly received an estimated US$8 billion of remittances in 2008, up 19.4 per cent on year, the newswire vnexpress.net said, citing an official of Vietnam's department for Overseas Vietnamese, or Viet Kieu.
"In the face of the global economic slowdown, the preliminary sum is an unexpected figure," Nguyen Quoc Dung, vice chairman of the department told mass media on Tuesday Jan 6.
Currently, Viet Kieu have invested into nearly 3,000 companies with a combined registered capital of US$6 billion outside the country and 60 per cent of which are operating profitably, the department said.
Interest rates of dollar deposits among banks in Vietnam are 3.05 per cent/per annum, much higher than in the U.S.
Statistics by the United Nations showed that Vietnam is listed among top ten countries which receive remittances in 2006 and now three million Viet Kieu live and work in 40 countries around the world. (vnexpress.net Jan 6, www.vietstock.com.vn Jan 6)
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