During June, 654 million US dollars arrived in the country for remittances from Colombian workers abroad, with the figure for the first half of the year closing at 3,986 million US dollars, 58% of the total amount that arrived in 2020.
By the way, according to the monthly report of the Bank of the Republic, the number lThe first six months of 2021 show a growth of 29.41% Compared to the same period in 2020, the concept amounted to $3,080 million.
The month with the highest number of transfers was March with $789 million. Which was also the highest historical figure for such remittances from Colombians abroad.
(See: Colombia, among the countries where remittances are growing most.)
According to the bank’s consolidated balance sheet, in the first quarter of the year, $1 billion came from the United States, $340 million from Spain, $106 million from Chile and $45 million from the United Kingdom. Only $180,000 came from Venezuela, $443 from other countries and during this quarter the total amount to Colombia was $1,936 million.
This means that in the second quarter, the total number that entered the country in workers’ remittances was $2,050 million.
According to Banco de la República statistics, during 2020, the year that saw the strongest downturn in modern history due to efforts to tackle the pandemic, Income of 6,902 million USD country, 2.5% higher than in 2019, When the amount entered was $6,733 million.
Of the total number of remittances that reached Colombia in 2020, $3,572 million came from the United States, which is more than half of the amount and also represented a 10% increase compared to what was reached in 2019. Also the highest sent from that country.
In the United States, there are approximately 50% of the Colombian immigrant population And although at the beginning of the epidemic there were high unemployment figures in that country, the situation was quickly corrected.
(See: UN Proposal to Use Remittances to Reduce Poverty.)
In addition, it must be remembered that with the millionaire’s plans to help the unemployed, immigrants were favored and with it sending resources to their families in Colombia.
In the last 15 years, The most noticeable changes in the flow of remittances have occurred with countries such as Venezuela and Chile.
In the United States, it is close to 50% of the Colombian immigrant population and is the country from which most remittances come.
The first, which became Colombia’s second trading partner and to which thousands of workers immigrated from the 1960s and 1970s, especially unskilled labor, was a major sender of remittances until 2000.
Changes in the economic policies of this country, as well as the destruction of a large part of its productive apparatus, which caused high unemployment, led to the collapse of remittances sent to Colombia.
The last year to see good numbers in remittances from that country was 2013, when $492 million arrived, although since 2006 there have been strong ups and downs. In 2020, barely 860,000 US dollars arrived in Colombia from Venezuela.
According to Edgar Jiménez, of the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University Financial Laboratory, Colombians have taken the opportunity to send these resources from countries where there have not been full lockdowns.
Another factor he considers essential is that “Many of them had savings waiting for a better exchange rate, and seeing that this had gone up, spurred sending resources, because by monetizing them, they were getting more pesos for the dollar.“.
Economic analysts say that these resources contributed to maintaining high consumption rates, not only for daily expenses, but also For other, more durable items such as housing, Take advantage of the subsidies provided by the government for this item.
(See: Countries from which most remittances were sent to Colombia in 2020).
For a finance professor, “Not everything is bad due to the effects of the pandemic, this is news that has been loaned to do this kind of thingLast year, it helped deliver good home sales numbers.
What is more, You think it would be feasible to send remittances more massively He warned that this number may continue to rise.
“We should get used to seeing remittances much higher than $6 billionHe added. The number of remittances from Colombian workers abroad represents 2% of Colombia’s GDP.
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