Several years of encouragement by the Hanoi government for Vietnamese to work abroad are paying off as the country enters the top 10 recipients of remittances. Latest figures from the Western Union company, which handles money transfers worldwide, show the country received about $13 billion in remittances last year, up from about $12 billion in 2013. A big encouragement is that recipients of remittances do not have to pay income tax on the money, nor are they required to convert the transfers into the local currency, the dong. Remittances now account for 8% of Vietnam’s gross domestic product.
