Remittances are now a more important source of hard currency than traditional exports such as coffee and bananas.
In 2002, remittance revenues were about US$700m, the government reckons. This was US$50m more than the revenues generated by the maquiladora plants in the country.
The President reckons that registered remittances this year will come in at US$800m. There will also be another US$200m or so in unregistered remittances.
The overwhelming bulk of the remittances come from Hondurans living in the US. There are reckoned to be around 600,000 Hondurans in the US: around 93,000 of them are undocumented, the government says. These migrants are also benefiting from the extension of the Temporary Protection Status (TPS) in the same way that the Salvadoreans are.
Maduro, who was president of the central bank from 1990 to 1994, said that he could never have imagined then that remittances would be such a source of revenues. In 1990, indeed, remittances were worth only US$50m.
One of the great boons about remittances is that they tend to go to poorer households and thus go some way to keeping some families out of poverty.
End of preview - This article contains approximately 210 words.
Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article
Not a Subscriber?
Choose from one of the following options
