Remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean slower, IDB fund says

Migrant workers sent some US$66.5 billion to the region in 2007, MIF estimates

Latin American and Caribbean migrants sent some US$66.5 billion back to their homelands in 2007, about 7 percent more than in the previous year, according to estimates presented today by the Inter-American Development Bank’s Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF).

“This is the first time since we started tracking remittances in the year 2000 that we haven’t seen a double-digit increase,” said MIF Manager Donald F. Terry. “This is mostly because the region’s two top recipients of workers remittances, Mexico and Brazil, departed significantly from past trends.”

Remittances to Mexico were virtually unchanged in 2007, rising barely 1 percent to US$24 billion. Money transfers to Brazil dropped 4 percent to about US$ 7.1 billion last year. [Read more]