India tops the list of recipient of foreign remittances

October 8, 2013

As per the World Bank report- Migration and Remittance Flows: Recent Trends and Outlook-2013-16, India is the largest recipient of foreign remittances among developing economies in 2013.

Migration and Remittance Flows: Recent Trends and Outlook-2013-16 report:

Non-Resident Indians (NRI) remitted a record $71 billion in 2013 compared to $70 billion in 2012.
The remittances are likely to increase to $85 billion annually by 2015.
India and China will represent nearly 1/3^rd of total remittances to the developing world in 2013.
For India, nearly 40% of the remittances came from the gulf countries while 48% flowed from South Asian countries.
The developing world is expected to receive $414 billion in migrant remittances in 2013, an increase of 6.3% over year 2012. This is projected to surge to $540 billion by 2016.
Globally, the world’s 232 million international migrants are expected to remit earnings worth $550 billion in 2013 and over $700 billion by 2016.

The top recipients of officially recorded remittances for 2013 are:

India – $71 billion
China – $60 billion
The Philippines – $26 billion
Mexico – $22 billion
Nigeria – $21 billion
Egypt – $20 billion

As a percentage of GDP, the top recipients of remittances, in 2012, were Tajikistan (48%), Kyrgyz Republic (31%), Lesotho and Nepal (25% each), and Moldova (24%). The volume of remittances in India is larger than the income from IT exports. With the depreciation of the Indian rupee, a rise in remittances is expected as NRIs take advantage of the cheaper goods, services and assets back home.