Moldova was mentioned in a World Bank paper, alongside countries from Africa and Asia, as one of the low-income countries that will face significant drops in remittances. WB experts anticipate that the remittance inflows in Moldova this year will halve over the last year and this will seriously affect the country's budget, Info-Prim Neo reports. In Moldova, workers’ remittances equivalent to about 30 percent of GDP in 2008 were more than enough to offset a current account deficit that would have reached 25 percent of GDP without them. With almost two thirds of these flows coming from Russia, Moldova was hit hard by the global crisis, and remittance inflows as a share of GDP are expected to fall by as much as half, the WB said in the paper. Further compounding the economic shock, remittances are largely used to finance household consumption and fuel imports, on which the government depends heavily for tax revenue. As a result, in addition to the sharp contraction in external financing, last year’s modest fiscal surplus is expected to turn into a sizeable deficit in 2009, perhaps as large as 10 percent of GDP. Moldova was also mentioned as one of the 43 low-income countries that are still suffering the consequences of the global recession and face $11.6 billion shortfall in critical core spending, with sharp drops in trade, capital flows, remittances, and tourism. The paper also says that the G-20 countries are expected to approve the pledge of $50 billion dedicated for low-income countries to aid them in designing and implementing the policies and social safety nets at the coming London Summit According to the National Bank of Moldova, the Moldovans working abroad this July sent home through banks only US$98.5 million, a 45% decrease compared with last July 2008. In the seven months to July this year, remittances totaled US$612.6 million, in contrast to US$936.6 million in the corresponding period last year.