OREANDA-NEWS. June 17, 2009. Money transfers to Moldova from individuals from abroad through banks in January-April 2009 totaled US317.57 million, down US 159.51 million (33.4 per cent) from the same period last year.

According to the National Bank’s data, US 256.32 million or 80.7 per cent of the total amount of remittances in January-April 2009 were received by means of fast money order systems. In January-April last year, this indicator amounted to US 393.23 million (82.4 per cent).

As it was reported earlier, money transfers to Moldova from individuals from abroad through commercial banks in 2008 totaled US 1 billion 660.06 million, up 36.3 per cent from the previous year. Remittances from Moldovan labor migrants were increasing until July 2008, however, since August they have been reducing in comparison with previous months due to the global financial crisis. Russia and Italy are the leaders in money transfers to Moldova.

According to the World Bank’s data, Moldovan gastarbeiters’ remittances make up about one third of the country’s GDP. As it was reported earlier, according to results of the poll carried out in March 2009 by the CBS-AXA company, about 20 per cent of citizens who received money transfers from abroad in 2008, stopped receiving them in 2009.

Only 30 per cent of over 2 thousand participants of the poll said they were able make savings in 2009 (in 2008 – 50%), and 45 per cent said they received less money than last year. About 20 per cent of families said one of their family members had lost the job. At the same time, according to the poll, the number of those who returned temporarily increased from 4.9 per cent in 2008 to 9.1 per cent, and 8 per cent said they had returned home ”forever”.

According to the poll, 29.3 per cent of Moldovan families received remittances in the last 12 months in comparison with 31.4 per cent in 2008.