Between January and February, the exchange balance registered an income of family remittances of US $ 3,638 million (about Q28 billion) which means a growth rate of 21.5% or double digit during the first two -month period.
The indicator is greater than US $ 2,996 million accounted for in the same period; In other words, US $ 642 million has been received in the first 60 days of the year.
“Extraordinary” Growth
In February again there was an “unusual” behavior that the authorities of the Bank of Guatemala (Banguat) have described it as an “extraordinary” flow.
In this regard, Álvaro González Ricci, president of the Bank of Guatemala (Banguat) said that during February a daily income was accounted for that reached US $ 87 million, reflecting an “accelerated” behavior and the month closed at US $ 1 thousand 821 million, being greater than US $ 1,527.9 million of the same period of 2024.
Regarding the factors that would be explaining this additional flow trend of transfers, the official stressed that they have observed that Guatemalan migrants in fear of being able to be detained or deported, is generating more than dispatches in amount and frequency.
The president of the Central Bank reiterated that by 2025, a total income of US $ 22,800 million is projected, which would be greater at the end of 2024 which was US $ 21,510 million, “but a review could soon be given depending on the evolution of the variable that maintains a double digit growth.”
EFFECTS ON THE ECONOMY
The sending of family remittances has effects on the economy both at the macro and micro level; that is to say both at the country level and the people who receive it or beneficiaries.
Óscar Erasmo Velásquez Rivera, former Minister of Economy and Professor of Macroeconomics at the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the University of San Carlos de Guatemala, declared that the variable has an impact on demand and the exchange rate.
The components of the aggregate demand in the economy are divided into the internal and external. Internal demand is structured by total consumption, families, non -profit institutions, plus public consumption. Plus total investment, which is private and public. And external demand is explained by exports.
The annual increase in remittances and beneficiary families have two possibilities of use: consumption and investment. “For any of the variables, either because of the consumption that is the largest amount of money that is destined and to saving and investment, that increase in remittances implies an increase in internal aggregate demand, but more on the side of consumption,” said Velásquez Rivera.
In his opinion that variable will maintain the real growth of the gross domestic product (GDP).
In Guatemala, the main destination provided by families beneficiaries to remittances is for home consumption, according to the results of the International Migration Survey of Guatemalan and Remittance 2022 that carried out International Organization for Migration (IIM), and in which it determined that 43.8% of the receiving families are destined to meet their main needs in the home.
Exchange rate
Another macro effect, according to the specialist, is that the entry of those dollars through remittances becomes an increase in the offer of dollars in the market.
“That offer of dollars has allowed the stability of the exchange rate and the availability of these foreign exchange for the importation of goods, services and capital that economic agents perform,” he said.
Micro effect
Remittances also have a micro effect on the economy, especially on the map of poverty.
For Velásquez Rivera for people who receive the foreign exchange, it has allowed them to get out of extreme poverty or poverty, depending on the amount that their relatives dispatch to each home.