For the first time in ten years, the money sent home by Romanian guest workers last year exceeded the sum of foreign direct investments, business portal Ziarul Financiar writes.
According to data provided by Eurostat, last year an estimated 3.6 million Romanians living abroad sent home €3.422 billion, the most money among all guest workers in EU member states — they were followed by Spaniards, Poles and Italians.
Money remitted by Romanians living abroad fell by 7.1 percent compared to 2019, when Romanians sent home €3.68 billion.
Last year, just over €3 billion in foreign direct investment flowed into the Romanian economy, resulting in Romanians overseas officially being the country’s largest form of foreign direct investment for the first time since 2011.
In 2020, the value of foreign capital investment was significantly reduced by the coronavirus pandemic, falling by almost 42 percent year-on-year. That figure has picked up again this year however, more than tripling in the first ten months of 2021 to €6.881 billion compared to the same period last year.
