For the first 7 months of the current fiscal year, (July 2022-January 2023) tourism revenues coupled with remittances from overseas and shadowed by foreign Reserves are showing promising Post COVID19 recovery symptoms.
Savali reported that remittances according to the Central Bank of Samoa’s Macro-Economy Report issued 13th March 2023, for the 7-month period increased by 20.5% to $511.33 million tala compared to $424.41 million tala for the same period from the previous fiscal year.
And like previous period, direct remittances to families account for the bulk of the funds send from overseas by families and relatives. For the period under review, direct remittances to families expanded by 15.1% to $447.46 million tala.
Funds remitted from overseas to Non-profit institutions Serving Households climbed 9.0% during the 7-month period under the microscope to $16.86 million tala.
Tourism Revenues is showing promising post COVID19 recovery symptoms and accounted for $194.17 million tala injected into the local economy from 59,380 arrivals who visited Samoa since July 2022 until the end of January 2023.
Over 26,000 of the arrivals were visiting friends and relatives who off-loaded $104 million tala in fresh revenues into the local economy.
By January this year, Foreign Reserves marched to $894.55 million tala which according to the Central Bank of Samoa represented a 16.4% higher compared to the same month last year.
“At this level, this was sufficient to cover 9.4 months of imports which was lower than 10.9 months at the end of January 2022,” the report noted.
The External Debt account at the end of the first quarter December 2022 dropped to $902.4 million tala compared to $998.66 million tala in December 2021.
As for Annual Debt Servicing at the end of December 2022, Samoa has paid out $108.95 million tala to her debtors as of December 2022 which was 206% higher compared to the same period.
“This large hike,” says the Central Bank report “reflects the end of the Debt Service Suspension Imitative which Samoa is part of, and resumption of normal debt servicing repayments.”
