Vietnamese abroad send home over US$17 billion in remittances in 2020
Vietnamese abroad sent home US$17.2 billion worth of remittances in 2020, making the country the third-largest remittance recipient in the East Asia and Pacific region, said the Migration and Development Brief released by the WB and the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development.
This represents a rise of nearly 3 % over 2019, a very positive result compared to the previous forecast in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, the World Bank estimated that remittance flow to Vietnam in the first 10 months of 2020 fell by 7 %.
Vietnam came after China in remittances last year which received US$59.5 billion, while the Philippines raked in US$34.9 billion.
With remittances equivalent to 5% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), Vietnam was among the top 10 countries in the region by the share of GDP.
According to the World Bank, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, remittance flows remained resilient in 2020, registering a smaller decline than previously projected.
The main drivers for the steady flow included fiscal stimulus that resulted in better-than-expected economic conditions in host countries, a shift in flows from cash to digital and from informal to formal channels, and cyclical movements in oil prices and currency exchange rates, the brief wrote.
