Remittances from EU to private persons of Moldova continue to increase, reach share of 46 per cent

Chisinau, 25 April /MOLDPRES/ - The transfers of financial means to private persons (resident and non-resident) from the European Union countries continue to increase and have reached a share of 46 per cent of all transfers in last March against 44.5 per cent in February 2019, according to data by the National Bank of Moldova (BNM), made public today.    

The transfers from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in the last months have had a tendency of stagnation at the level of 21.7-21.8 per cent. Moldovan citizens working in Russia this year sent home thrice less money than six years ago. In March 2019, the transfers from Russia had a share of 20.7 per cent of all remittances, down by 7.7 percentage points against the same period of the year before. The remittances from other states, excepting CIS and EU, in last March stood at 32.2 per cent of all transfers.    

According to BNM, most transfers from the European Union member states are coming from Italy, respectively 12.87 million dollars, followed by Germany (8.25 million), United Kingdom (6.95 million), France (4.89 million dollars). Transfers amounting to 19.6 million dollars were made from Israel and 7.9 million dollars from the USA in March 2019.  

In last March, the net value of transfers of money to private people through banks of Moldova stood at 101.96 million dollars, down by 7.1 per cent against the same period of 2018.  

BNM said that, during January-March 2019, the overall bank transfers from abroad to private persons from Moldova amounted to 276.81 million dollars, which is by 7 per cent less than in the same period of the year before.

The National Bank said that, in March 2019, the fluctuations of the exchange rates of the currencies against the U.S. dollar contributed 5 percentage points to the overall decrease of the transfers from abroad to private people, against the similar period of the previous year. Yet, in reality, (by eliminating the effect of the exchange rate through the recalculation of sums at the exchange rate of the concerned period of the year before) a 2.1-per cent diminution of the transfers was recorded.