PARAMARIBO–Overseas remittances to Suriname are decreasing, while in contrast, transfers out of the country are on the rise, a financial rapport on the country has revealed.
Surinamese people living in the Netherlands, the USA and the Netherlands Antilles sent US$ 159,4 million home in 2011, while in 2009 no less than 198 million euros were remitted from The Netherlands alone. The number of Surinamese people in The Netherlands that sent money dropped with ten percent since 2009.
Fiscal jurist Robby Makka ventured that the decline in remittances from The Netherlands may have been caused by the eurocrisis, unemployment among Surinamese people in The Netherlands and the lack of a clear diaspora policy is lacking in Suriname.
Meanwhile, the increase of foreign investments and the associated growth of expats in Suriname have resulted in more money being sent out of the country. In 2011 a total of US$ 72.1 million was remitted from Suriname to foreign countries; this amount includes money expats sent back home to China, Brazil and the USA, and financial aid parents sent to their children studying abroad.
This phenomenon is burdening the exchange rate for foreign currency in Suriname; people exchange the Suriname dollars (SRD) they earn for US dollars, which they then send abroad. This increases the demand for the American currency.
Last August parliamentarian Rabin Parmessar urged a change in the regulation that forbids that cambio’s (money exchange companies) offer overseas money transfer services. Parmessar said then that because people cannot send money at the cambio’s, a hidden route is created from the cambio’s to the Western Union type companies that are allowed to offer these services. Allowing cambio’s to send money abroad would create transparency and bring a halt to unfair competition between the cambio’s and the money transfer companies, the parliamentarian said. “Cambio’s fall under the bank law, so they should be allowed to offer both services at one location,” said Parmessar. This is however forbidden by the Central Bank.
In Suriname 23 cambio’s operate with 60 branches all over the country; there are seven money transfer companies.