Overseas Remittance Hits $10 Billion

The amount of money sent abroad from Korea, including the wages of foreign workers in the country, reached US$10 billion in 2010.

According to the Bank of Korea on Friday, wages paid to foreign employees with a contract of less than one year in 2010 surpassed $1 billion for the first time ever. This is a 66 percent jump from a year earlier, when the figure stood at $650 million.

The combined amount of remittance to foreign employees with a contract of one year or longer and to Koreans living abroad grew by 28 percent to some $8.9 billion.

BOK officials say as the Korean won started to show a full-scale recovery, demand for foreign workers surged in the nation leading to an increase in overseas remittance.