Croatia was among the four EU countries with the highest surplus in international remittances in 2019, considerably higher than in 2018, according to Eurostat.

Last year Croatia recorded an inflow of personal transfers of €1.9 billion, of which €952 million was remitted from other EU countries and €961 million from non-EU countries.

Higher inflows of personal transfers were recorded by Romania (€3.7bn), Portugal (€3.6bn), Poland (€3bn) and Italy (€2bn)

The highest outflows of personal transfers were observed in France (€11.9bn), Spain (€8.5bn), Germany (€5.4bn) and Belgium (€1.4bn).

In Croatia, outflows of personal transfers last year reached €433 million, of which €176 million was remitted to other EU member states and €256 million to non-EU countries. The surplus in the balance of international remittances was HRK 1.48 billion, an increase of 11.6% over 2018.

Higher surpluses were recorded by Romania (€3.4bn), Portugal (€3.2bn) and Poland (€2.5bn).

The largest deficits were registered in Germany (€5.4bn), Italy (€4.7bn) and Ireland (€1.3bn).

In the EU, outflows of personal transfers increased by 7.8% to €33.2 billion in 2019. The majority of personal transfers consist of flows of money sent by migrants to their country of origin.

Last year extra-EU personal transfers were mostly directed to Asia and North Africa as well as to European countries outside the EU. On the other hand, inflows to the EU totalled €13 billion, up by 4.8%. This resulted in a negative balance for the EU of €20.2 billion, an increase of 10% compared with 2018.