SAN SALVADOR – Remittances from Salvadoran emigrants, the vast majority of them in the United States, fell 8.5 percent last year compared with 2008, the nation’s central bank said Tuesday.

The difference between the $3.79 billion El Salvador received in 2008 and the $3.46 billion expats sent home last year is equivalent to 16.1 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, the Banco Central de la Reserva said.

Households in El Salvador received an average of $288.70 per month in 2009 from loved ones living and working abroad, $26.90 a month less than during the previous year, according to the BCR’s economic analysts.

The BCR noted that the decline in remittances eased last month, when the total was just 0.3 percent smaller than in December 2008.

Central bank economists attributed that development to improved economic conditions in the United States and to emigrants’ efforts to send home extra money after El Salvador was devastated in November by flooding and mudslides blamed for some 200 deaths.

At the same time, the BCR said that unemployment among U.S. Hispanics, which reached 12.9 percent in December, “will limit the recovery” in remittances in the coming months.

Officials here estimate that El Salvador’s economy contracted 3.3 percent in 2009 and forecast modest GDP growth of 1.5 percent this year. EFE