Moldova tops ranking by share of remittances in GDP

Moldova and Tajikistan take the first position in the world by the share of remittances in the Gross Domestic Product, according to the World Bank report “Remittance Trends 2007”. The remittances in Moldova and Tajikistan make up 36.2% of the GDP. The two states are followed by Tonga with 32.3%, Kyrgyzstan with over 27%, Honduras and Lesotho with about 25% each etc. India ranks first in the world by the volume of remittances - about 27 billion USD. China and Mexico come next with 25 billion USD each. Romania took the tenth position with 6.8 billion USD remittances. According to official statistics, the Moldovans working abroad last year transferred home about 1 billion USD through commercial banks. The same figure is predicted for this year. Analysts say that the unofficial remittances are more than twice as large as the recorded remittances.