Workers’ remittances to feel coronavirus pinch

• Virus-hit Italy, S. Korea, among key source countries for remittances 
• EU accounts for 18% of SL’s total remittances; Far East Asia 9% 

The workers’ remittance flows to Sri Lanka are expected to take a hit from COVID-19, which is playing havoc in at least two of the countries from where Sri Lanka gets a substantial amount of remittance income.

Europe’s hardest-hit country, Italy, is in national lockdown for the second day, as the death toll from the virus had risen to over 630 by Tuesday. 

A significant number of Sri Lankans working in Italy send remittances here.

As per the Central Bank data, Sri Lanka received US $ 1.3 billion in remittances from the European Union (EU) in 2018, which accounted for about 18 percent of the 
total remittances. 

The Central Bank doesn’t have country breakdown figures for remittance earnings. 

South Korea and Japan are two other countries in the Far East Asia, where a substantial number of Sri Lankans are employed. Both these countries have been hit hard by the coronavirus with a multi-fold increase in cases.

Remittances from Far East Asia to Sri Lanka in 2018 were recorded at US $ 849 million—8.7 percent of total worker remittances of that year.

As of now, over 600 Sri Lankans have returned from Italy and South Korea.

The Middle East accounts for over 51 percent of worker remittances to Sri Lanka. 

On average, Sri Lanka receives US $ 7 billion from worker remittances for a year, roughly an 8 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). 

However, remittances have been on a declining trend since the Gulf countries curtailed their quotas for foreign employees after the region suffered from declining oil prices for nearly three years. 

According to the Central Bank data, worker remittances to Sri Lanka fell 4.3 percent to US $ 6.7 billion in 2019.

Globally, more than 4,000 people have died from the coronavirus and in excess of 113,000 cases have been confirmed, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). 

About 64,000 people have recovered from the illness around the world, according to John Hopkins University.