Indians top list of migrants to sending money home

Overtaking remittances from Mexicans and Chinese

October 22, 2007

According to a new UN report, Indians topped the list of migrants working in industrialized countries for sending home money. The report released by the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development, said that India with $24.5 billion (2.7 per cent of its GDP), topped the list of countries in receiving remittances, followed very closely by Mexico ($24.2 billion) and China ($21 million).

In 2006 migrants sent more than $300 billion, this is nearly three times the $104 billion given in foreign aid to developing countries.

Though the report did not went into much detail about the remittances received by India, it did say that the emerging destination countries from India - the region's main exporter of migrants, with 22 percent of total migrant - include Malaysia and the Arab oil exporting countries.

Observing that information technology was playing a major part in transfer of money from the industrialized countries to these nations, the report said in countries like India and Philippines mobile technology is being used as a widely accepted means for money transfer operations and is growing exponentially.

The India-specific figures released by the UN study is similar to the one revealed by the Reserve Bank of India and World Bank early this, which said that India received $24.6 billion (in 2005-06) and $23.5 billion (in 2005) respectively. The Reserve Bank of India in its report on remittances early this year had said that North America has replaced Gulf countries as the most important source of remittances. It estimated that 44 per cent of remittances originate in North America, 24 percent in the Gulf region, and 13 per cent in Europe.

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