In 2018, flows of money sent by residents of the European Union (EU) to non-EU countries, referred to as personal transfers, amounted to €35.6 billion, compared with €32.6 billion in 2017.
Inflows to the EU totalled €10.9 billion in 2018, unchanged compared with 2017, Eurostat said.
This resulted in a negative balance (-€24.6 billion) for the EU with the rest of the world.
The majority of personal transfers consist of flows of money sent by migrants to their countries of origin. This News Release, issued by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, presents annual data on personal transfers collected within the framework of Balance of Payments statistics.
For Cyprus, there was an outflow of €263 million of which €202 million went to third countries and the remainder within the EU. There was also a €233 million inflow, €135 million of which came from other EU countries and €98 million from outside the bloc.
Among member states for which data is published, the outflows of personal transfers in 2018 were highest from France (€11.4 billion), followed by Spain (€7.7 billion), the United Kingdom (€7.0 billion), Italy (€6.5 billion) and Germany (€5.2 billion).
By contrast, the highest inflows were recorded in Portugal (€3.6 billion), ahead of Romania (€3.0 billion), Poland (€2.9 billion), the United Kingdom (€2.3 billion) and Italy (€2.0 billion).
As a result, the largest surpluses in personal transfers were registered in 2018 in Portugal (+€3.1 billion), Romania (+€2.7 billion) and Poland (+€2.5 billion), while France (-€10.5 billion) recorded by far the largest deficit, followed by Germany (-€5.1 billion), the United Kingdom (-€4.7 billion) and Italy (-€4.5 billion).
Extra-EU personal transfers were mostly directed to Asia (21% of total extra-EU outflows), followed by North Africa (18%), non-EU European countries (16%), Central and South Africa (14%) and South America (13%).
Source: Cyprus Mail
