Russia No Longer Georgia’s Largest Source of Remittances

Russian Federation is no longer the largest source of money transfers to Georgia, as the January-July data of the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) shows.

According to the NBG, in 6 months of 2018, the volume of money transfers from the European Union countries exceeded transfers from Russia by $41 million which was on the contrary before.

The amount of money transferred from the EU countries in January-July amounted to $255 million. As for Russia, $214 million was transferred from there to Georgia in the first half of the current year.

Georgia got the most significant amount of remittances from the following EU countries: Italy - $ 89 million, Greece - $ 81 million, Germany - $ 20 million and Spain - $ 19 million.

As for the remittances in June, the volume of money transfers in Georgia increased by 14.8% compared to the previous year and amounted to $135.1 million.

Primary sources of money transfers to Georgia in June were the EU countries (34%) and Russia (29%).

Also, the volume of money transfers from Georgia increased by 0.5% in June and amounted to $17.9 million.

In May 2018, the volume of money transfers from abroad to Georgia amounted to $130.4 million (320.1 million GEL), which is 13% ($15 million) more than the number of money transfers in May 2017.

Russia ($37.84 million), the USA ($12.11 million) and Italy ($11.68m) were the main sources of remittances in May 2018.