HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese expatriates living abroad will remit roughly US$2.5 billion to HCM City in 2016’s final quarter, deputy director of the State Bank of Việt Nam’s HCM City branch Nguyễn Hoàng Minh estimates.

This result would bring the city’s received overseas remittance this year to around $5.7-5.8 billion, up from $5.5 billion last year.

The Vietnamese diaspora sent more money to HCM City in the first nine months of this year, rising 4 per cent year-on-year to reach $3.25 billion.

Minh attributed the rise of the remittance to a warming domestic real estate market and rising deposit interest rates.

Echoing Minh, Đông Á Money Transfer Company director Trần Văn Trung predicts that the remittance to the city will be higher than last year thanks to the rebound of the real estate market.   

Trung said that the US, Australia and Canada would remain Việt Nam’s largest remittance sources, followed by Malaysia, Taiwan and Japan.   

Financial expert Huỳnh Trung Minh said that remittance had become an important capital source to offset the country’s trade deficit and support the country’s foreign reserves.

Trung Minh attributed the rise to the growing number of Vietnamese working and residing abroad.

Besides the streamlined policies and regulations encouraging Việt kiều (overseas Vietnamese) to invest to their homeland, an ease of remittance management policies - such as simplified remittance transfer service licences issued by the State Bank of Việt Nam - also contributed to increasing the remittance to the country, Trung Minh said.

Remittances to HCM City, which received the largest volume of remittances nationwide, have increased some 10 to 12 per cent on average in the past five years.

Remittances to the city last year reached $5.5 billion, exceeding the $5.2 billion received in 2014. More than 70.8 per cent of the remittance value flowed into production and businesses, while some 21.6 per cent went into real estate and 7 per cent to relatives. — VNS