Global remittances: South Asia to receive $ 140 bn in 2015

Remittance flows to South Asia are projected to remain buoyant in the coming years, reaching $ 140 billion in 2015, according to the World Bank.
The World Bank’s latest Migration and Development Brief revealed that officially recorded remittance flows to South Asia are estimated to have increased sharply by 12.8 percent to $ 109 billion last year.
This follows growth averaging 13.8 percent in each of the previous two years.
India remains the largest recipient country in the world, receiving $ 69 billion in 2012.
In addition to large numbers of unskilled migrants working mainly in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, India also has a large skilled diaspora the US and other high-income countries.
Flows to Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal have also been robust, helped by strong economic growth in the GCC and India.
“Migration and remittances offer a vital lifeline for millions of people and can play a major role in an economy’s take-off,” says Kaushik Basu, the World Bank’s chief economist and senior vice president for development economics.
He made the remarks as he participated in an event to mark the launch of KNOMAD.(Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development).
“The World Bank has played a critical role in migration and remittance research and KNOMAD will be critical in taking this agenda forward.”
According to the latest edition of the World Bank’s Migration and Development Brief, officially recorded remittance flows to developing countries grew by 5.3 percent to reach an estimated $ 401 billion in 2012.
Remittances to developing countries are expected to grow by an annual average of 8.8 percent for the next three years and are forecast to reach $515 billion in 2015.
Given that many migrants send money and goods through people or informal channels, the true size of remittances are much larger than these official figures.
The top recipients of officially recorded remittances for 2012 are India ($ 69 billion), China ($ 60 billion), the Philippines ($ 24 billion), Mexico ($ 23 billion) and Nigeria and Egypt ($ 21 billion each).
Other large recipients include Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Lebanon.
As a percentage of GDP, the top recipients of remittances, in 2011, were Tajikistan (47 percent), Liberia (31 percent), Kyrgyz Republic (29 percent), Lesotho (27 percent), Moldova (23 percent), Nepal (22 percent), and Samoa (21 percent).
Hans Timmer, director of the Bank’s Development Prospects Group, said: “The role of remittances in helping lift people out of poverty has always been known, but there is also abundant evidence that migration and remittances are helping countries achieve progress toward other Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), such as access to education, safe water, sanitation and health care.”
With remittance inflows of an estimated $ 49 billion in 2012 (an upward revision of about $ 2 billion from previous estimates), the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region experienced the fastest expansion of remittances in 2012, growing by 14.3 percent over 2011.
The World Bank report said that Egypt, which accounted for over 40 percent of total remittance inflows to the region, had seen a six-fold increase in remittances over the last eight years, making it the largest recipient in the region, ahead of Lebanon, Morocco, Jordan and Tunisia.
Although Egypt has a large stock of highly skilled expatriates in the US, the UK and Europe, about two-thirds of its migrants are working in oil rich countries within the MENA region.
Remittance flows to the MENA region are expected to grow by 5-6 percent, rising to $ 58 billion in 2015.