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Remittances the lifeblood for many
published: Sunday | August 20, 2006 <DIV class=KonaBody>
FILE
Customers transacting business at the offices of a remittance service.
Yahneake Sterling, Staff Reporter
Nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of Jamaicans say they sometimes receive money from family and friends abroad, and for a little over a tenth of them the remittance is monthly.
Among those who share in the estimated US$1.5 billion a year that is sent to Jamaica, approximately 49 per cent say that the extra cash makes their economic positions "a little easier". But for 12 per cent of them, remittances mean absolute survival.
These are among the findings in a survey conducted for The Gleaner a month ago by pollster, Bill Johnson, who interviewed 1,008 people in Jamaica's 14 parishes. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus three per cent.
Rapid growth
Remittance has grown rapidly in Jamaica over the past decade and a half and now trails only tourism as the country's largest source of foreign exchange, having long outpaced bauxite/alumina.
But while the importance of the inflows to the economy has long been acknowledged, Johnson's survey highlighted the extent to which Jamaicans, with varying levels of frequency, receive cash from abroad.
In their latest survey on living conditions in the island, the Planning Institute of Jamaica and the Statistical Institute of Jamaica reported that nearly a third of households (32.9 per cent) received remittances from abroad in 2004, up 6.3 percentage points from two years earlier.
That report also said that of the households that received money from abroad, 22.5 per cent were from the poorest five per cent of households, while 35.7 per cent were among that five per cent with the most wealth.
Additionally, the poorest five per cent of the population received 10.8 per cent of total remittances, while the wealthiest five per cent received 30.2 per cent of the money sent to Jamaica.
Fluctuation
Remittance companies suggest that inflows fluctuate seasonally, peaking during mid to late summer just ahead of the new school year and during the year-end holiday season.
"The back-to-school period and the Christmas period, which is the big volume period, the biggest of the season," said Noel Greenland, international marketing manager for GraceKennedy Remittance Services Limited, which has the Caribbean franchise of the big American remittance company, Western Union.
<LI>Frequency of remittances among persons polled <LI>Two per cent received weekly remittances. <LI>Five per cent received remittances four times per year. <LI>Five per cent received remittances six times per year. <LI>Nine per cent received remittances three times per year.
Source: Bill Johnson's July 2006 survey</LI></DIV>
published: Sunday | August 20, 2006 <DIV class=KonaBody>
FILE
Customers transacting business at the offices of a remittance service.
Yahneake Sterling, Staff Reporter
Nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of Jamaicans say they sometimes receive money from family and friends abroad, and for a little over a tenth of them the remittance is monthly.
Among those who share in the estimated US$1.5 billion a year that is sent to Jamaica, approximately 49 per cent say that the extra cash makes their economic positions "a little easier". But for 12 per cent of them, remittances mean absolute survival.
These are among the findings in a survey conducted for The Gleaner a month ago by pollster, Bill Johnson, who interviewed 1,008 people in Jamaica's 14 parishes. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus three per cent.
Rapid growth
Remittance has grown rapidly in Jamaica over the past decade and a half and now trails only tourism as the country's largest source of foreign exchange, having long outpaced bauxite/alumina.
But while the importance of the inflows to the economy has long been acknowledged, Johnson's survey highlighted the extent to which Jamaicans, with varying levels of frequency, receive cash from abroad.
In their latest survey on living conditions in the island, the Planning Institute of Jamaica and the Statistical Institute of Jamaica reported that nearly a third of households (32.9 per cent) received remittances from abroad in 2004, up 6.3 percentage points from two years earlier.
That report also said that of the households that received money from abroad, 22.5 per cent were from the poorest five per cent of households, while 35.7 per cent were among that five per cent with the most wealth.
Additionally, the poorest five per cent of the population received 10.8 per cent of total remittances, while the wealthiest five per cent received 30.2 per cent of the money sent to Jamaica.
Fluctuation
Remittance companies suggest that inflows fluctuate seasonally, peaking during mid to late summer just ahead of the new school year and during the year-end holiday season.
"The back-to-school period and the Christmas period, which is the big volume period, the biggest of the season," said Noel Greenland, international marketing manager for GraceKennedy Remittance Services Limited, which has the Caribbean franchise of the big American remittance company, Western Union.
<LI>Frequency of remittances among persons polled <LI>Two per cent received weekly remittances. <LI>Five per cent received remittances four times per year. <LI>Five per cent received remittances six times per year. <LI>Nine per cent received remittances three times per year.
Source: Bill Johnson's July 2006 survey</LI></DIV>