The SBV said that overseas remittance reached around US$2.5 billion in the first quarter of the year, US$2 billion in the second quarter and US$2.5 billion in the third quarter.

Currently, more than 400,000 Vietnamese guest workers are working abroad and around 4 million Vietnamese people are residing in nearly 100 nations and territories around the world. These people annually send a huge volume of overseas remittance back home, said the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences.

The volume of overseas remittance to Vietnam made up only 4.2 percent of total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1999, 7.8 percent in 2002 and 7.7 percent in 2010.

The World Bank (WB) placed Vietnam 16^th among nations around the globe to have received the largest amounts of overseas remittance in 2010. In South East Asia, Vietnam ranked second followed by the Philippines (US$21.3 billion in 2010).