He Central Bank of the Dominican Republic (BCRD) notified that, in the past month of January remittances received reached a figure of $802.0 milliondisplaying a 5.6% growth YoY, about 42.7 million additional to those received in 2022 and additional 9.2 million with respect to 2021.
The flow in January is over US$800.0 million, the new monthly level observed in remittances. In this sense, this amount for January 2023 is close to double the value averaged in the same month for the pre-pandemic period of 2015-2019, according to the Central Bank, which was US$439.1 million.
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Where do the remittances come from?
The Central Bank explains that the economic performance of the United States was one of the main factors that influenced the behavior of remittances, since 83.3% of the formal flows in January came from that country, some US$544.9 million.
The entity also highlights the receipt of remittances through formal channels from other countries in January, such as Spain, for a value of US$45.2 million, 6.9% of the total, this being the second country in terms of total residents of the Dominican diaspora abroad is concerned, as well as Haiti and Italy, with 1.2% and 1.0% of the flows received, respectively. The rest of the receipt of remittances is divided between countries such as Switzerland, Canada and Panama, among others.
The institution highlights that the greater flows of external income also allowed the accumulation of international reserves at the end of January of over US$14.6 billion, representing 12.1% of GDP and some 5.5 months of imports, metrics that exceed the levels recommended by the Monetary Fund. International (IMF).
