Over USD2 billion remittances sent to Ho Chi Minh City

According to Mr. Nguyen Hoang Minh, Deputy Director of the State Bank of Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City branch, remittances sent to the city are mainly from the US (60%) and Europe (about 19%).

"Most remittances are used in business or investment but aren’t kept, spent or focused on investment in real estate and securities, as before," said Mr. Nguyen Hoang Minh.

Remittances often depend on macroeconomic conditions, the situation of overseas workers, and remittance attracting services. Representatives of the State Bank of Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City branch said that macroeconomic stabilization and increasing pressures on exchange rate due to market psychology are major reasons that remittance receivers transfer from keeping foreign currency into Vietnam Dong.

As a result, the USD/VND exchange rate has been quite stable from early in the year to now, despite strong fluctuation in the world market.

With the strong recovery of Ho Chi Minh City’s economy compared to the general level of the country, Mr. Minh predicted that the amount of remittances sent to Ho Chi Minh City in 2017 will be positive./.