That’s equivalent to 6.5 percent of Vietnam’s GDP, showing that remittances continue to be an important asset for the country, the report said.

India took the top spot in 2019 with inflows of $83.1 billion, followed by China with $68.4 billion, Mexico with $38.5 billion and the Philippines with $35.2 billion.

This was the third consecutive year that Vietnam remained among the top 10 beneficiaries of inbound remittances. The figure was $13.8 billion in 2017 and $15.9 billion in 2018.

According to the World Bank, global remittances are set to decline sharply this year, by about 20 percent, due to the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The projected fall, which would be the sharpest decline in recent history, is largely due to a fall in the wages and employment of migrant workers, who tend to be more vulnerable to loss of employment and wages during an economic crisis in a host country.

Remittances to Vietnam have been on an upward trend for the last two decades, starting at a mere $1.3 billion in 2000.

The increasing number of guest workers it sends abroad has made the country among the world’s leading recipients.

The department under the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs that manages overseas labor records more than 147,000 workers going abroad last year, up 3.2 percent from the previous year, marking the sixth year in a row that the figure has exceeded 100,000.