Remittances and policy implications: from the perspective of supply - demand

Abstract

Remittances have increasingly played an important role for Vietnam as there has been an increase in scale in recent years, typically in 2018, according to WB, the number of remittances into Vietnam reached about 16 billion USD [1]. However, the data on remittances published are not the same among Vietnamese authorities and the World Bank, even different from the figures in the field survey. For example, according to statistics of the State Bank of Vietnam the remittances inflow into Vietnam was nearly 10 billion USD in 2017, lower than the 14 billion USD announced by the World Bank. The differences come from different perspectives on remittances. Based on the model of supply - intermediation - demand, in which the supply refers to the source of remittances, the intermediation is the channels of remittance transfer and the demand is the remittance recipients, the research introduces the concepts of this foreign currency source. Thereby, trying to classify by criteria, analyze the possible policy implications to enhance the role of remittances for Vietnam's economic development. This contributes theoretical and practical values to the management of remittances in Vietnam today, especially in the goal of better leveraging benefit of remittance to develop national economy.