Whopping remittances!!!!
Guyanese sent home US$270M in 2006
Kaieteur News
March 20, 2007
Guyana received US$270M in remittances in 2006, part of a whopping US$62.3B sent home by migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean.
The total figure which was remitted from migrants, mostly in North America, Europe, and Asia was 14 percent higher than the amount for 2005.
According to the Inter-American Development Bank's Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF), this figure is expected to rise to about US$72B in 2007 in remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean.
The remittance to Guyana is lower than that sent to the Dominican Republic, which recorded $2.6B, while Jamaica received US$1.6B, and Haiti US$1 billion.
Trinidad & Tobago received US$97 million, and Suriname US$55 million.
According to the IDB, remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean will continue to grow in coming years, and surpass $100 billion a year by 2010.
MIF Manager Donald F. Terry, Saturday, presented the estimate for the money transfers made by Latin American and Caribbean migrants at a news conference held on the eve of the annual meeting of the IDB Board of Governors.
"Given present economic and demographic trends in Latin America and the Caribbean, and in industrialized countries, remittances will continue to grow in volume over the next few years to (reach) more than $100 billion a year by 2010," he said.
For the IDB and the MIF, added Terry, this growth is not a cause for celebration because it reflects the fact that the region cannot generate sufficient income opportunities to prevent millions of people from migrating.
Nevertheless, he said, remittances will continue to flow. They already exceed both foreign direct investment and overseas aid to Latin America and the Caribbean, helping millions of families to escape poverty.
"The challenge for the countries in this region, and for institutions such as the IDB and the MIF, is to find ways so these flows may have a greater development impact by offering migrants and their families more options to get more out of their money," Terry said.
The IDB and the MIF support programmes are aimed at expanding the economic impact of remittances by encouraging financial institutions to handle these flows so that people who send or receive money transfers may build credit histories and gain access to services such as savings accounts, insurance, pensions, as well as business and housing loans.
The MIF will also support a new programme, launched by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, which will establish a $10 million facility to finance projects to cut the cost of making money transfers to remote rural areas around the world.
(Hardbeatnews.com)