Remittances, which are the money that Colombians receive from relatives, friends or acquaintances who are abroad, set a record figure for the month of January. The Banco de la República reported that they totaled 664.45 million dollars in the first month of the year, an amount that is 21.3% higher than the US$547.62 million seen for the same period in 2021.
The dynamics is in line with the behavior that remittances brought last year, because as it is worth remembering between January and December 2021 they totaled US$8,597.25 million, which implied not only a growth of 24.4% compared to 2020, but also the best year for Colombia in this matter.
Although the Banrepública has not broken down the data according to the issuing countries of that money for the fourth quarter of 2021 and for January 2022, what is observed is that until September of last year the United States, Spain and Chile led shipments.
Additionally, as of that month, the main departments receiving resources were Valle del Cauca, Antioquia, Cundinamarca and Risaralda, in that order. For the paisa territory, it is worth mentioning, the transfers totaled US$1,104.82 million in the third quarter.
Experts consider that several ingredients have allowed this interesting growth in remittances, and among the most important are the rapid recovery of employment in the United States –understanding that several compatriots there managed to get hooked on the labor market–, as well as the boost that the dollar had in the final stretch of 2021 and the start of 2022, approaching 4,000 pesos.
In the world
What happens in Colombia is not very different from the behavior of remittances throughout the planet. Even the World Bank admitted that the recovery of these resources was rapid and estimates that in 2021 they would have grown 7.3% to US$589 billion in low- and middle-income countries.
“Flows increased by 21.6% in Latin America and the Caribbean, 9.7% in the Middle East and North Africa, 8% in South Asia, 6.2% in Sub-Saharan Africa and 5 .3% in Europe and central Asia”, explained the multilateral organization.
The determination of migrants to lend a hand to their relatives in times of crisis, the rapid recovery of Europe, fiscal stimuli and employment promotion programs are some of the reasons that the World Bank used for the positive behavior of remittances
