According to data from the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), for the whole of 2021, the diaspora sent 3.043 billion BAM to family and friends, while a year earlier, 2.522 billion BAM arrived in BiH based on remittances.
Economist Marko Djogo says that the growth of remittances, regardless of the global crisis, should not be surprising, considering inflation and the fact that money is losing its value.
”By the end of the fourth quarter of 2022, that number will probably exceed three billion BAM, since most of this money arrives cyclically towards the end of the year,” Djogo stated.
Cessation of growth
He added that the growth trend could be interrupted in 2023 and that this is a fairly reliable expectation.
”If there is a serious economic crisis, and in the announcement it is and the first parameters show that it will be so, it will have a negative impact on our people who work abroad, so that they will send less money,” Djogo pointed out.
Also, these remittances that arrived in the three quarters of 2022 are less than those that came ten years ago, which is a consequence of demographic trends.
”Now whole families are moving abroad and they simply don’t send money here anymore, unlike before, when only the man who supported his family here went to work abroad,” he added.
Money important for citizens
Moreover, he emphasized that the money that arrives on the basis of remittances is important for citizens, but that this importance is also diminishing.
”At one point, we had a situation where remittances received from abroad accounted for 20 percent of GDP, and in 2022 it will be less than ten percent, given that GDP exceeded 35 billion BAM, and remittances are unlikely to reach 3.5 billion BAM by the end of the fourth quarter,” Djogo concluded.
Since 2008, when the world economic crisis broke out, remittances from abroad began to fall and had this trend until 2012, when they gradually started to recover.
Earlier data from the Central Bank of BiH show that foreign aid to citizens in BiH grew and that it only managed to reach the level of 2007 in 2017, which is when the diaspora sent 2.51 billion BAM.
E.Dz.
