The Inter-American Development Bank publishes today on its web-site previsions for remittance flows in 2009 to Latin America: they will go down for the first time since 2000. And different countries are experiencing different situation. The Andean region is effected worse by the decline of the euro whereas the Mesoamerica region sees a strong dollar partially counterbalance the decrease in money flow.
According to the Banco de Guatemala, in the first two month of 2009 remittances to the country have diminished by 9.59% comparing with same period of 2008.
Monday, 16 March 2009
According to Banco de Guatemala, for the first time since 1999, in January 2009 remittances from abroad decreased by 7.75% compared to the same month in 2008. In Guatemala remittance flows represent 11.89% of GDP. According to the World Bank remittances can represent more than 50% of rurally-based family income and for the International Organization for Migration 30.4% of the population receives money from abroad.
Causes? Probably economic crisis and deportation of illegal immigrants from the US.
Something is certain: remittances are a strong factor in reducing poverty in Guatemala. If flows continue to decrease is more than probable that poverty will rise in a country where, according to the government, 45,6% of children are already underweight.
Monday, 16 February 2009
r-bloggers.com Simply Statistics Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
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