Daily Times

NEW DELHI – A World Bank report says those Indians – who have migrated to Pakistan – are expected to remit back home a staggering $4.9 billion in 2015, thereby making Pakistan the fourth largest source of India’s remittances.

Another interesting statistic the study throws out is that the Bangladesh-India corridor ranks third in the list of top migration corridors behind the Mexico-US and the Russia-Ukraine corridors.

Bangladeshi migrants residing in India are expected to remit $4.6 billion back home in the current year. Total remittance flows to India are expected to touch a staggering $72.2 billion in 2015, making it the highest recipient worldwide, says the World Bank’s Migration and Remittances Factbook 2016.

China ranks second, with remittance flows expected to touch $63.9 billion, followed by the Philippines ($29.7 billion), Mexico ($25.7 billion) and France ($24.6 billion). Globally, remittances are estimated to exceed $600 billion in 2015. Of this, developing countries are expected to receive a lion’s share estimated at $441 billion.

To put this figure in perspective, this amount is roughly three times the official development assistance these countries receive. But, this figure might well be underestimated, too. As these figures do not include unrecorded flows through formal and informal channels, the actual size of remittances is likely to be significantly larger than what the report noted.

Migrants from India are largely concentrated in the United Arab Emirates (2.3 million), followed by the US (2.1 million), Saudi Arabia (two million) and Pakistan (1.4 million). These four countries along with Kuwait and Qatar account for roughly 69 per cent of total remittance flows into India.

The UAE leads the pack, with transfers through this corridor expected to touch $13.2 billion in 2015. It is followed closely by the US ($11.5 billion), Saudi Arabia ($11 billion), Pakistan ($4.9 billion), Kuwait ($4.8 billion), and Qatar ($4.2 billion).

The top migrant destination is the US, followed by Saudi Arabia, Germany, Russian, UAE, the UK, France, Canada, Spain, and Australia. India is the top emigration country with 13.9 million emigrants, followed closely by Mexico at 13.2 million and Russia at 10.9 million.

Worldwide, high-income countries are the main source of remittances. The US tops the list with an estimated $56.3 billion in outflows in 2014. Saudi Arabia ranks the second, followed by Russia, Switzerland, Germany, UAE, and Kuwait.