Vietnam remittances top $11 bln, half go to HCMC
Vietnam remittances top $11 bln, half go to HCMC
Vietnam received a remittance flood of US$11 billion in 2013, and 50 percent of the sum was dedicated to recipients in Ho Chi Minh City.
With Vietnamese people living overseas and guest workers from 101 countries and territories sending home $11 billion last year, Vietnam ranks ninth in the top ten countries receiving the largest amounts of remittance in 2013, according to the World Bank.
The money transferred via banks in Ho Chi Minh City topped $4.8 billion, up 21 percent from 2012, the city’s chairman Le Hoang Quan said during a meeting on Tuesday.
Quan said the remittances sent to HCMC account for 50 percent of the country’s full figures.
The meeting was held to celebrate the Lunar New Year, with the participation of more than 700 overseas Vietnamese citizens and many of the city’s top leaders.
The chairman also said overseas Vietnamese citizens have invested more than $260 million into 122 projects in Vietnam in 2013.
Some 4 million Vietnamese, including around 400,000 guest workers, are living and working in 101 countries and territories around the world.
While the US and the EU are the traditional sources of remittance for Vietnam, last year saw an increase in inward remittances from China and the Republic of Korea, Nguyen Hoang Minh, deputy director of the HCMC branch of the State Bank of Vietnam, said in a statement in November 2013.
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