The remittance sent from Germany to Croatia has been rising over the recent years, and in 2017, they totalled €187 million, news agency Hina reported on Sunday, citing a report compiled by the German Bundesbank.

In 2013 – the year when Croatia joined the European Union – payments from Germany to bank accounts in Croatia had amounted to €121 million. Three years later, in 2016, the transfers increased to €149 million, and in 2017 they reached €187 million.

These numbers are thought to reflect the increasing numbers of Croatians who emigrated from Croatia to Germany since the country joined the EU in 2013, and who now send part of their earnings to families and relatives back home. According to the German statistics bureau, there were nearly 370,000 Croatian nationals living in Germany at the end of 2017, two thirds of them in the states of Baden-Wuerttenberg and Bavaria.

In terms of amount of money sent from Germany to foreign countries, Croatia ranked sixth in 2017. Turkey topped the ranking with €816 million sent from Germany to personal accounts in Turkish banks. Poland came in second, with €440 million, and Italy was third with €353 million sent to Italy.

Romania and Greece ranked fourth and fifth, with €333 million and €191 million respectively.

The total volume of money transfers made by foreign workers in Germany to private bank accounts in their countries of origin has soared in recent years, Bundesbank reported.

In 2015, bank transfers to foreign countries by workers employed in Germany had totalled €3.5 billion, which increased to €4.6 billion in 2017.

The highest rise in value of transfers over those two years was recorded in transactions made to Syria and Afghanistan, due to a rising number of migrants coming from those two Asian countries and integrating into the largest European economy.

Furthermore, the numbers of Bulgarians and Romanians immigrating to Germany in the same period has tripled, which has resulted in increasingly more transfers of funds to their countries.

Remittance from Germany to Bosnia and Herzegovina amounted to €91 million in 2017, or up by €11 million from 2013, and funds transferred to bank accounts in Serbia totalled €108 million in 2017.

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