Remittances to HCM City rise 3 percent to 2.1 billion USD

HCM City, June 27 (VNA) - Remittances to Ho Chi Minh City in the first half of this year rose 3 percent year-on-year to 2.1 billion USD. The deputy director of the State Bank of Vietnam’s HCM City branch, Nguyen Hoang Minh, said the remittances mainly went to production and businesses. Minh forecast that remittances to the city would continue to rise, reaching roughly 5.7 billion USD due to the city’s rapid economic rebound. Remittances to HCM City, one of the top localities nationwide with the largest volume of remittances, have increased roughly 10-12 percent on average during the past five years. The rise has been mainly driven by an increase in remittances from the United States and the European Union, Minh said, adding that remittances from China and the Republic of Korea had remained modest. Remittances to HCM City last year reached 5.5 billion USD, inching up against the 5.2 billion USD received in 2014. More than 70.8 percent of the remittance value flowed to production and businesses, while roughly 21.6 percent went into real estate and 7 percent was destined for relatives. Compared with last year’s overall remittance of nearly 12.3 billion USD, Vietnam’s remittance for this year has been forecast to increase slightly in the wake of Government policies to encourage overseas Vietnamese to invest in their homeland and due to the warming of the local real estate market./.