PHNOM PENH: Cambodia’s inflows of remittances from workers abroad were the third-highest in Southeast Asia after the Philippines and Vietnam as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) last year, a new report says.

The report — by the ADB Institute, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the International Labour Organisation — estimated remittances to Cambodia grew eight percent from a year earlier to US$1.25 billion in 2022.

That was more than 80 percent of the pre-Covid level of remittances which peaked at US$1.53 billion in 2019. As the pandemic progressed, remittances to Cambodia fell to US$1.27 billion in 2020 and a low of US$1.15 billion in 2021.

At 4.4 percent of GDP in 2022, Cambodia’s remittances were dwarfed by those to the Philippines, estimated at 9.5 percent of the country’s economic output last year. Vietnam was the second-ranked ASEAN country at 4.6 percent. After Cambodia, Indonesia had ASEAN’s fourth-highest remittances at 0.8 percent of GDP.

Released earlier this week, the report — entitled Labour Migration in Asia — cited Ministry of Labour data showing that Thailand had an estimated 1.2 million Cambodian workers in 2021. South Korea had almost 46,000 workers from Cambodia followed by Malaysia with 23,000, Japan with nearly 12,000, and Singapore with about 800.

For studying abroad, the most popular destination was Australia which had 1,900 students from Cambodia in 2000. The United States ranked second with about 800 Cambodian students and Japan was third with about 600.