Remittances to Ho Chi Minh City are expected to reach some 5.3 billion USD in 2019.(Photo: tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn)
HCM City (VNA) – Remittances to Ho Chi Minh City are expected to reachsome 5.3 billion USD in 2019, a year-on-year surge of 9 percent, despiteunfavourable global financial and monetary market, according to Deputy Directorof the State Bank of Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City branch Nguyen Hoang Minh.
Minh said that Vietnamese expatriates remitted roughly 4.3 billion USD to thesouthern hub as of the end of November.
The flow of money has played an important role in economic development as wellas stability of foreign currency supply in the city, he stressed.
Vietnam was expected to remain one of the top tenremittance recipients in 2019, according to the latest edition of the WorldBank’s Migration and Development Brief.
Around 16.7 billion USDin remittances was projected to flow into Vietnam for the full year, making theSoutheast Asian country the ninth largest remittance recipient – in dollarterms – in the world.
The figure inches upagainst 16 billion USD in 2018, and accounts for some 6.4 percent of thecountry’s GDP.
In East Asia and Pacificregion, Vietnam is expected to rank third in terms of remittances after Chinaand the Philippines.
Financial andbanking expert Nguyen Tri Hieu said that the country’s high remittance flow wasmainly because Vietnamese people working abroad believed in the stability ofthe economy and saw better investment opportunities in the domestic market.
He said that remittances to Vietnam were largely used toinvest in production, business and the real estate market.
Remittances to Vietnam have kept rising for the past twodecades, from more than 1.3 billion USD in 2000 to 16 billion USD last year(except the year of 2009 due to adverse impacts of the global financialcrisis)./.
VNA
