Wed, Feb 08 2012

Emigrant money counted

Fri, Mar 11 2005 13:00 CET

byBusiness Staff

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MORE than 900 million euro was sent last year by Bulgarians working abroad to their relatives in this country, money transfer company Western Union said on March 7.
The average sum of the transfers sent by Bulgarians abroad to their relatives was about 250 euro a month.
This means that most Bulgarians abroad do not earn as much money as they had expected when leaving this country, said Galya Petkova, manager of the Bulgarian arm of Western Union.
Company data showed that migrants were transferring several but small sums of money.
More than 2.8 million Bulgarians live abroad, according to Agency for Bulgarians Abroad data.
About 700 000 of them left Bulgaria in recent years and have kept their Bulgarian citizenship. The others are representatives of historically formed national communities in different countries. Bulgarians live in about 70 countries but are officially considered as minorities in seven countries.
About 200 000 Bulgarians live in the US and a further100 000 are Bulgarian-Americans. A total of 25 000 Bulgarians and 30 000 Bulgarian-Canadians live in Canada. Bulgarian-Argentineans number 32 000.
A total of 150 000 Bulgarians live in Greece, 60 000 in Germany, 50 000 in the UK, 50 000 in Italy and 70 000 in Spain.
A historical Bulgarian minority of 20 000 lives in Romania, about 300 000 to 500 000 Bulgarians live in Ukraine, Moldova and Russia. A total of 50 000 Bulgarians live in Serbia and 11 000 Bulgarian Muslims live in Kosovo. About 40 000 Muslim Bulgarians live in northern Greece.
In recent years, the so-called "emigrant money" has been the second largest financial influx after foreign direct investment, according to Institute for Market Economics (IME) research.
Preliminary estimates show that foreign direct investment in Bulgaria in 2004 was about 1.957 billion euro, while the emigrant money stood at almost a billion euro. However, the data on the transfers to relatives is not full, as long as many Bulgarians bring cash when visiting their homeland.
The positive effects for the Bulgarian economy from the migrant money could be seen in the increased quantity of foreign currency and unemployment drop, IME said. However, despite all of its advantages, the migration is a serious problem because it leads to population drain in Bulgaria.

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