ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s employee remittances hit the best in six years as extra individuals despatched international forex from overseas with a report quantity from the labour power leaving the nation, official information confirmed.
The 2024 full yr remittances rose 10.1 p.c to $6.57 billion, from practically $6 billion within the earlier yr, the Central Financial institution information confirmed.
In December 2024, the remittances gained 7.7 p.c to $613.8 million in comparison with $569.7 million in the identical month earlier yr.
Employee remittances are one of many prime international trade income earners for the island nation which continues to be recovering from an unprecedented financial disaster hit in 2022.
The island nation has been within the technique of sending extra migrant staff to herald larger international trade because the nation declared chapter in 2022.
A report 312,836 individuals left the nation final yr, surpassing the earlier report excessive of 310,953 hit in 2022, information from Sri Lanka International Employment Bureau confirmed.
The remittances have risen constantly after the central financial institution gave up a parallel trade fee regime, which compelled most expatriates to change casual Undiyal and Hawala cash switch strategies.
The island nation witnessed a 57 p.c leap in remittances coming by means of formal banking channels to $5.97 billion in 2023, from $3.8 billion a yr earlier, helped by elimination of parallel trade fee.
Employee remittances coming by means of official channels fell sharply in 2021 after many expatriates switched to casual cash transferring channels as they got larger charges than formal banking channels.
The transfer got here after the Central Financial institution printed to sterilize interventions and maintain a coverage fee down, triggering parallel trade charges, which had been settled exterior the formal banking system.
From April 2022, the rates of interest had been raised by unprecedented ranges, slowing credit score and the necessity to print cash to maintain charges down. (Colombo/January 11/2025)
