BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhuanet) -- About 13 million Latin American immigrants living in the United States will send home a total of around 45 billion U.S. dollars this year, up from some 30 billion dollars in 2004, according to an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) report released on Wednesday.

    That money, known as remittances, is five times as large as official development assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean.

    The percentage of immigrants sending money on a regular basis has increased from 61 percent in 2004 to 73 percent in 2006, said the bank, and the average amount of each remittance also grew, from 240 dollars to 300 dollars.

    The bulk of the remittances comes out of such traditional immigrant gateway states as California and Florida, but remittance growth is fastest in such places as New Mexico, Louisiana and Virginia, according to the IDB.

    Migrants earned an average of 150 dollars a month in Latin America, but their first U.S. job paid six times more, according to the IDB survey.

    Most of the immigrants said they did not have full-time jobs in their countries when they moved to the United States, but most of them found work within a month of arrival, and 38 percent found it in less than two weeks.

    Most of the money immigrant workers send to their families is used for basic needs, such as food, medicine and shelter, but more than half of the immigrants surveyed by the Inter-American Development Bank said that they would like to invest a portion of that money.

    But the majority of Latin America's financial institutions don't have programs that help the families of migrant workers open savings accounts or start small businesses.

    Governments and international development groups have busily debated how to leverage remittance flows to create jobs and lasting investments. Enditem

(Agencies)