16 November 2020 02:33 am Views - 222
Workers’ remittances registered the sixth consecutive monthly increase in October despite earlier forecasts cautioning significant decline in such earnings due to COVID-19 resultant job losses.
Remittance income, which is Sri Lanka’s largest foreign exchange income, rose by US$ 23.7 million or 3.9 percent in October over the same period last year, to US$ 630.7 million.
An instance where workers’ remittance income surpasses US$ 600 million mark in a month is not
very common.
September became an exceptional month for worker remittances in Sri Lanka as such income surged 36.1 percent to US $ 702.7 million.
With the continuous flow of robust remittances since May, the cumulative income reached US$ 5.7 billion in the 10 months, a growth of 2.6 percent over the corresponding period in 2019.
For 2019 full year, Sri Lanka received US$ 6.7 billion from worker remittances.
The steady flow of worker remittances to Sri Lanka has defied a number of gloomy forecasts. The dourest one was a 19 percent decline projected by the World Bank.
Countries, including Sri Lanka are adjusting to deal with the coronavirus without stalling economic activities as they are of the view that the remedy cannot be worse than the problem.
The remedy at first was locking down countries and shutting down economies putting many millions out of work, which brought in a fresh set of challenges for the governments to deal with
than the virus.
The resilience of remittance income to Sri Lanka reflects this fact as migrant workers continue to engage in their occupations in host countries.
During November and December Sri Lanka generally gets higher remittance income due to Christmas and other year-end festive activities. Although the festivities are expected to remain modest this year due to coronavirus, an uptick in remittances is expected.