[11 February 2010, Eurostat Newsrelease 20/2010] In the  EU27, money sent by migrants to their former country  of residence, usually referred to as workers' remittances, amounted to 31.8bn € in 2008, compared with 31.3bn in 2007 and 19.4bn in 2004. These figures include both intra-EU27 and extra-EU27 flows.

The increase in workers' remittances over recent years was mainly due to a sharp rise in extra-EU27 flows  (from 11.5bn in 2004 to 22.5bn in 2008), while intra-EU27 flows rose less rapidly (from 7.9bn to 9.3bn). Consequently, the share of extra-EU27 remittances in the total has risen from 59% in 2004 to 71% in 2008.

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