RIYADH — The personal remittances of expatriates posted an increase of 19.25 percent, reaching SR149.69 billion ($39.92 billion) during the year 2020, while compared to SR125.53 billion ($33.47 billion) during 2019, according to the latest report of the Saudi Central Bank (SCB). The value of remittances recorded is the highest in 2020 over the last four years since 2016. Remittances have declined in the past two years in a row from SR151.9 billion ($ 40.5 billion) in 2016 to SR141.6 billion ($ 37.8 billion) in 2017, to SR136.4 billion ($ 36.4 billion) in 2018, and then to SR125.53 billion ($ 33.47 billion) in 2019. The Central Bank figures showed that there has been an increase of 16.1 percent in the remittances reaching SR13.42 billion ($3.58 billion) during the month of December 2020, while compared to SR11.56 billion ($3.08 billion) in the same period in 2019. On a monthly basis, the remittances rose by 4.34 percent in December as against SR12.86 billion ($3.43 billion) in the previous month. According to the Central Bank, the transfers during December recorded the highest level in about five months, since July 2020, which amounted to SR15.213 billion ($4.06 billion). During the fourth quarter of last year, personal transfers of foreigners residing in the Kingdom rose by 21.35 percent, reaching about SR39.45 billion ($10.52 billion), compared to SR32.51 billion ($ 8.67 billion) in the same quarter of 2019, an increase of 21.35 percent. The transfers dropped in the fourth quarter of 2020 by 3.3 percent when compared to their value of SR40.8 billion ($ 10.88 billion) in the third quarter of 2020, the SCB data showed.