Remittances to HCM City increase this year. (Source: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnamese expatriates living abroad will remit roughly 2.5 billion USD to HCM City in 2016’s final quarter, Deputy Director of the State Bank of Vietnam’s HCM City branch Nguyen Hoang Minh estimates.
This result would bring the city’s received overseas remittance this year to around 5.7-5.8 billion USD, up from 5.5 billion USD last year.
The overseas Vietnamese sent more money to HCM City in the first nine months of this year, rising 4 percent year-on-year to reach 3.25 billion USD.
Minh attributed the rise of the remittance to a warming domestic real estate market and rising deposit interest rates.
Echoing Minh, Dong A Money Transfer Company Director Tran Van Trung predicts that the remittance to the city will be higher than last year thanks to the rebound of the real estate market.
Financial expert Huynh Trung Minh said that remittance had become an important capital source to offset the country’s trade deficit and support the country’s foreign reserves.
Huynh Trung Minh attributed the rise to the growing number of Vietnamese working and residing abroad.
Besides the streamlined policies and regulations encouraging overseas Vietnamese to invest to their homeland, an ease of remittance management policies - such as simplified remittance transfer service licences issued by the State Bank of Vietnam - also contributed to increasing the remittance to the country, Huynh Trung Minh said.
Remittances to HCM City, which received the largest volume of remittances nationwide, have increased some 10 to 12 percent on average in the past five years.
Remittances to the city last year reached 5.5 billion USD, exceeding the 5.2 billion USD received in 2014. More than 70.8 percent of the remittance value flowed into production and businesses, while some 21.6 percent went into real estate and 7 percent to relatives.-VNA
