Remittances to LatAm, Caribbean Increasing

Remittances to LatAm and the Caribbean are likely to rise this year after stabilizing in 2010, according to the IDB’s Multilateral Investment Fund. Measured in USD, money transfers made by LatAm and Caribbean migrants to their countries of origin reached $58.9bn in 2010, virtually unchanged from $58.8bn in 2009, when remittances saw a 15% drop due to the effects of the global economic crisis, the MIF says. Although remittances stabilized in 2010, the MIF says they increased in some sub-regions. Transfers to CentAm jumped 3.1% while those to Haiti increased 20%, largely due to the humanitarian crisis caused by the earthquake. “Remittances to LatAm and the Caribbean are likely to continue rising in volume in 2011, although still below the double-digit rates they attained in years prior to the global crisis,” the MIF says, adding that the pace of growth will depend principally on how strongly the job markets in source countries such as the US and Spain recover.