India continues to retain its position as the world’s top recipient of remittances, with its diaspora sending back $78.61billion in 2018. Considering that India’s diaspora is the largest in the world, at 17.5 million (as of mid-2019), this ranking in terms of remittances is not surprising.
India’s remittances were 14% of the global remittance figure of $689 billion followed by China with remittances of $67.41 billion which is 5.4% of the global remittance figure. Even in 2010 and 2015, India was the top recipient of remittances. Remittances during 2010 were $53.48 billion, rising to $68.91 in 2015 - an increase of nearly 29%. The increase in remittance between 2015 and 2018 is 14%. As compared with the remittances in 2010, the latest figure of $78.61 billion shows a rise of nearly 47%. The statistics were disclosed in the World Migration Report 2020 by International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which is United Nation’s migration unit.
High income countries are almost always the main source of remittances. For decades, the US has consistently been the top remittance-sending country, with a total outflow of $68 billion, followed by UAE ($44.4 billion) and Saudi Arabia ($36.1 billion), the report states. The number of international migrants is estimated to be almost 272 million globally, with nearly two-thirds being labour migrants. However, this figure is a very small percentage (merely 3.5%) of the world’s population, denoting that 96.5% people reside in the country in which they were born. That said, the report points out that the number already surpasses some projects made for year 2050, which had forecast the world’s migrant population to be 230 million.
At 17.5 million, India’s diaspora was the largest in the world during 2019, with majority of Indians in UAE (3.4 million), US (2.7 million) and Saudi Arabia (2.4 million). Mexico’s diaspora of 11.8 million was the second largest, followed by China at10.7 million.
