Travel services imports, which fell sharply in 2020 due to the pandemic, will grow by almost 1.5 times this year, to almost $7 billion, Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Yuriy Heletiy said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
“Travel services imports will not reach pre-crisis levels this year, but there will be an increase compared to the last year, when international travel was restricted due to lockdowns. We forecast an increase this year to nearly $7 billion from $4.7 billion in 2020, and it will exceed the pre-crisis level in the next year,” he said.
Earlier, the National Bank estimated travel services imports in 2019 at $7.5 billion.
At the same time, Heletiy said that the growth of remittances of labor migrants continues, which did not stop even the last year, and following the five months of this year amounted to 11%.
“According to our forecast, remittances of labor migrants this year will increase by 11%, to about $13.3 billion due to the economic recovery of the countries of destination of labor migrants and simplification of border crossing conditions due to the acceleration of vaccination rates,” the NBU Deputy Governor said.
