Remittances to Vietnam are expected to hit a record US$18.1 billion in 2021, according to the World Bank and Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (KNOMAD). 

As such, the country will be the eighth-largest remittance recipient in the world and the third-largest in the Asia-Pacific region this year.

In 2020, Vietnamese abroad sent home $17.2 billion.

Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s largest remittance recipient, is forecast to attract $6.5-6.6 billion this year, compared with $6.1 billion in 2020.

Nguyen Minh Tam, deputy general director of Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Sacombank), said the main sources of Vietnam’s remittances, the U.S., Australia and Canada, increased their sums by 10 to 20 percent compared to previous years. 

Vu Thanh Trung, deputy general director of DongA Money Transfer Co. Ltd., attributed the rise to overseas Vietnamese transferring more money to support their relatives in Vietnam during the implementation of strict COVID-19 social distancing measures. 

The remittances were mostly spent on investment, production, and business, according to Tam.

According to estimates from the World Bank’s Migration and Development Brief released recently, remittances to low- and middle-income countries are expected to grow a strong 7.3 percent to reach $589 billion in 2021. 

This return to growth is more robust than earlier estimation and follows the resilience of flows in 2020, when remittances declined only 1.7 percent despite a severe global recession due to COVID-19.

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