The World Bank recently published its Migration and Development Report. Accordingly, in 2013, the global amount of remittance of developing countries reached US$542 billion. This figure is predicted to rise to US$581 billion in 2014 and US$681 billion in 2016. Among them, Vietnam reached the top 10 countries attracting the largest amount of remittances in the world.
Specifically, Vietnam ranked 9th in the list of countries attracting the largest global remittances with US$11 billion. Largest remittance-receiving countries include India with US$70 billion, followed by China (US$60 billion), the Philippines (US$25 billion) and Mexico (US$22 billion).
However, in terms of remittance to GDP ratio, the leading country is Tajikistan (52 percent), followed by the Kyrgyz Republic (31 percent) and Nepal and Moldova (25 percent).
According to observers, the constantly increasing amount of remittances sent to Vietnam is because the number of Vietnamese overseas continues to grow, especially hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese students studying abroad or those working under contracts abroad.
In addition, money transfers have become easier and more convenient thanks to the more complete banking system, especially the presence of mass international money transfer companies in Vietnam such as Western Union and MoneyGram.
World Bank said that remittances to developing countries will increase by 7.8 percent compared to last year, increasing by US$404 billion. This is an important external source for them and is beyond the formal financial support and more stable than foreign investment inflow. To many countries, remittance is an important source of foreign exchange which is greater than the revenue from export and considerably helps cover the cost of imports.
Despite the current global economic downturn, remittance flows are expected to continue to grow with global remittances expected to reach US$581 billion in 2014, of which US$436 billion flowing to developing countries.
In short term, the World Bank said the global remittance outlook will remain strong. However, there exist risks of people returning to the country because of conflict or being expelled from their working place.
PV
Vietnamese
