BUCHAREST, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- Remittances to Moldova by expatriates rose to almost one billion U.S. dollars in first three quarters of 2018, announced the National Bank of Moldova (BNM) on Friday.
According to the BNM data, the net money transfers to private people exceeded 955 million dollars in the first nine months of this year, reaching an average of 9.5 percent as compared with the same period of the previous year.
The proportion of remittances from the European Union maintained the growth trend in recent years, reaching 42.9 percent, while the share of the Commonwealth of Independent States continued to slowly decline to 26.2 percent from the two-thirds share of the historical peak.
The rest of 30.9 percent of transfers were from the rest of the world.
Most of the money transfers, 48.2 percent, were made in euro, followed by transfers in U.S. dollars, 44.7 percent and in Russian rubles, 7.1 percent.
The remittances from workers abroad are the single most important net source of foreign exchange currency in Moldova, where an estimated one-third of the economically active population has been working abroad.
In 2017, remittances to Moldova by migrant workers rose 11 percent to 1.199 billion dollars.
Remittances to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio in the country are at more than 20 percent over the last 15 years.
