GUATEMALA: Up by 9%
The Banco de Guatemala reported that remittances in the first two months were up by 9% on 2004. This is a much lower percentage rise than figures from other countries in Central America, suggesting either that Guatemala's data collection is better than El Salvador's or Mexico's or, conversely, that its remittances are still under reported. In fact, we would argue that it is El Salvador's remittances which are still under-reported, perhaps by as much as 50%.
Guatemala's remittances came to US$413m in the first two months of 2005, up from US$378m in the same period of 2004. By contrast, El Salvador reported that its remittance revenues were up by 25%, though it is worth noting that the total for the first two months is only just US$10m higher than Guatemala's figure. This would tend to suggest that the El Salvador figure in 2004 was under-reported. Although, the fact that there were elections in El Salvador early in 2004 may have deterred expatriates from remitting.
On the other hand, there are (probably) more than twice as many Salvadoreans living in the US than there are Guatemalans. The consensus is that there are probably at least 2.5m Salvadoreans in the US while there are only about 1.2m Guatemalans. There are anything between 8m and 10m Mexicans who regularly remit money back home.
Dividing the number of remitters by the volume of what they remitted in 2004 results in Salvadoreans remitting an average of US$1,018 a year. Guatemalans remitted an average of US$2,129 and (assuming there are 9m) Mexicans, remitted an average of US$1,845.
These figures would seem to indicate that the Salvadoreans are still under-reporting their remittances. It is unlikely that they would be remitting only half what other expatriate groups are doing. The research into what various groups of immigrants do in the US does not suggest that Salvadoreans are invariably at the bottom of the pay scales.
Indeed, their migration status is rather higher than other nationalities because they enjoy Temporary Protection Status. Salvadoreans are also well established in the US, so new migrants can count on a network to help them get decent jobs.
Guatemala: In 2004 Guatemalan's remitted a total of US$2.55bn. This was 21% more than in 2003. There may be as many as 1.2m expatriate Guatemalans who remit money regularly to their families. Most (around 95%) of these expatriates live and work in the US. Over the past four years remittances have quintupled, going from US$592m in 2001, to US$1.59bn in 2002, US$2.1bn in 2003 and US$2.55bn in 2004. The data is collected by the central bank. Guatemala's exports in 2004 came to US$4.96bn.
El Salvador: Its remittances were up by 25% in first two months of 2005, compared with the same period of 2004. In the first two months of 2005 they came to US$425m, compared with US$342m in the first two months of 2004.