The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Remittance in 2024 reaches USD 41.57 mn due to Feb incentive
Bhutan saws its highest every remittance in 2023 with a record USD 125.04 mn worth of remittance.
However, this huge increase was mainly on the account of the 10% incentive scheme offered from 14th June 2023 to December 2023, a period of 6 months and 14 days.
In this time period with the incentive the remittance collected was USD 95.7 mn compared to just USD 28.26 mn from January to 13 June 2023.
The highest remittance in 2023 was seen in the months of October (USD 11.34 mn), November (USD 18.08 mn) and December (USD 36.20 mn).
In 2023 the highest source of remittance was from Australia with USD 62.24 mn which made up exactly 50% of the remittance.
The next highest was USA at USD 22.28 mn making up 18% followed by Kuwait at USD 14.9 mn at 11%.
UAE sent USD 3.74 mn at 3%, Qatar sent USD 3.35 mn at 3%, Canada sent USD 2.8 mn at 2%, Singapore sent USD 2.79 mn at 2%, UK sent USD 1.77 mn at 1%, Philippines and Switzerland sent USD 0.91 mn each at 1% each and the rest of the other countries sent USD 9.06 mn at 7%.
If there was no special incentive given the actual remittance that was collected in 2023 would have been close to USD 60 mn or less.
In 2024 the total remittance for the months of January, February, March and April is USD 41.57 mn.
However, here too the 10% incentive which was only offered for the month of February played a huge role in the total.
Of the total USD 41.57 mn in the four months of 2024 a majority of USD 30.48 mn came in the month of February 2024 which had the incentive.
Otherwise without the incentive the remittance is miniscule with January 2024 getting only USD 3.90 mn and March only getting USD 4.72 mn.
In 2024 the remittance sources are similar with the highest being Australia with USD 26.29 mn, USA sending USD 5.51 and Kuwait sending USD 3.36 mn.
The second highest remittance was in 2020 which was at USD 111.20 mn but importantly also without the 10% incentive.
In 2021, it was USD 108.74 mn and in 2022 it dropped to USD 82.58 mn.
In 2018 remittance was USD 44. 54 mn and in 2019 it was USD 39.88 mn.
The big jump in remittance in recent years was from Australia especially in 2020 and 2021 but it has since slowed down as Bhutanese invest in Australia or use the money to get other relatives there or seek better rates from Bhutanese privately buying the foreign currency.
