Anonymous administration sources are reporting this weekend that the Obama Administration will lift restrictions on family travel and remittances to Cuba this month.
Laura Meckler reported first in the Wall Street Journal: U.S to Lift Some Cuba Travel Curbs.. Here's another report from the New York Times: Obama to Loosen Restrictions on Policy With Cuba.
Meckler reports that under current rules, family remittances to Cuba from the U.S. are already something like $700 million a year. Sergio Diaz-Briquets reports on a telephone survey of Cubans on the the role of remittances in the Cuban economy: Remittances to Cuba: An Update (August 2008). There's evidently a lot of uncertainty about the $700 million figure:
As Pérez-López and Díaz-Briquets reviewed in 2006, the annual amount of remittances to Cuba, according to (1) balance of payments estimates; (2) surveys of remittances senders; (3) estimates of capacity of migrants to remit; and, in one occasion, (4) a small, nonrepresentative survey of remittance recipients has yielded a rather broad set of estimates. Disparities are undoubtedly associated with the variety of estimating approaches used, as well as methodological difficulties. Results yield estimates ranging from a few hundred million dollars a year (clustering around $300 million annually) to over one billion.
The money is relatively concentrated. Only about 15% of the respondents reported that their households received money from relatives abroad (and this is a survey of the more affluent households with telephones). Respondents over 60, white respondents, and urban respondents tended to report receiving remittances relatively more frequently.
The money makes its way to its recipients through a variety of channels:
Four out of ten Cuban recipients of monetary transfers claim to do so through friends (including people they know), with an additional 40% declaring they receive them through formal banking mechanisms, such as wire transfers and debit cards (Figure 3). Money transfer companies account for an additional 20% of remittances, and “mules” (professional travelers who carry cash) for the remaining 2%, although some mules may have been reported in the survey in the “people they know” category.
It's not clear from the news stories, or the Diaz-Briquets article, whether or not current restrictions ($300 per quarter for each Cuban recipient household) are a binding constraint on remittances.
"Obama to relax restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba" You have a very informative post. I really believe that when it comes to money there is always a discussion or sometimes a debate.
-urieqo-
Posted by: remittance philippines | April 15, 2009 at 09:28 PM