The money sent to the country by Romanians from the diaspora, a record level. With what amount did they “patch” Romania’s current account deficit?

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In 2023, Romanians who went to work abroad sent the equivalent of 2% of GDP to the country, just 1.2% less than the value of foreign direct investments (FDI) attracted by Romania last year, according to data from the National Bank of Romania ( BNR).

The amount, 6.5 billion euros, represents a new record and is more than twice as high as a decade ago – from 2014, he writes cursdeguvernare.ro.

In the last decade, the total value of remittances from Romanian workers abroad amounted to over 46.5 billion euros, with only 14.2% below the level of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) entered into the country in the same period.

Romanians’ remittances from abroad represent, along with FDI and European funds (about 4.2% of GDP in 2023), important sources of “patching” the current account deficit and supporting the national currency.

The current account, essentially a balance of Romania’s international transactions, registered a deficit of 22.7 billion euros last year (7% of GDP), mainly a consequence of the very high trade deficit (the difference between imports and exports: 28, 9 billion euros in 2023).

Great Britain remained in 2023, for the second year in a row, as the country of origin of the most important remittances to Romania. Almost a quarter, i.e. 1.5 billion euros, of the total remittances come from Romanians who went there. Germany occupied the second position, with 1.4 billion euros.

In fact, the two countries stand out for the constant increase in the level of remittances, while countries such as Italy and Spain, ranked first and third in terms of the size of Romanian communities, are rather inconsistent from this point of view. Remittances from these countries increased until 2019, after which they experienced several years of decline, only partially recovering following the pandemic.

On the other hand, remittances from Great Britain have increased almost tenfold in the last decade, in the context where the Romanian diaspora there numbers less than 0.4 million people, almost three times less than the Romanian diaspora in Italy, for example, according to official estimates.

About 0.8 million Romanians would have immigrated to Germany. However, remittances are also influenced by seasonal workers who work mainly in agriculture or tourism.