* El Salvador’s central bank (BCR) has released new figures which show remittances to El Salvador for the month of August totalled US$559.3m, up 18.7% on August 2019. This is the latest sign of recovery following declines stemming from unemployment in the US (the source country for 96.2% of remittances) due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. According to the BCR report, this is the third consecutive month of growth. Remittances for the first eight months totalled US$3.64bn, a 1.7% drop on the same period in 2019. The BCR cites as factors driving the accelerated recovery of remittances in the past three months
“the flexibility of Salvadorean migrants in adapting to new jobs” and the
“decrease in Hispanic unemployment” in the US, which is now 10.5%. The figures also show that remittances to neighbouring Guatemala totalled US$7bn in the first eight months of 2020, up 2.2% on the same period in 2019 while for Honduras, this figure was US$3.5bn over the same period, up 1.8% on 2019.
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