India tops nations in receiving money from expatriates.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: With the World Bank releasing a report on Wednesday announcing that India is the world’s leader in remittances coming into the country ($71 billion), The American Bazaar decided to take a look into the history of money remittances to India.
The following are some facts and figures about money transfers to India from as far back as the 1970s:
$71 billion — the amount of money India is expected to receive in 2013 via remittances, the largest amount of any country this year.
$130 billion — the amount of remittance money received by India and China alone in 2012, representing just under 25% of the total $529 billion.
$414 billion — the amount of remittance money expected to be sent to developing countries in 2013.
$131 billion — India and China’s share of the above $414 billion, which is almost 32%.
0.02% — the percentage of India’s GDP that remittances accounted for in 1971-1972, according to a study by the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad.
1990-1991 — the time period during which India began experiencing sharp growth in remittance transactions; at that point, remittances totaled $2.1 billion and still accounted for less than 1% of the country’s GDP.
44% — the percentage of remittances to India that originated from North America in 2005-2006, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
192 million — the number of migrant workers in 2010 that sent money back to their home countries in some form; forming roughly 3% of the world’s population at the time, according to the World Bank.
40% — the percentage that remittances to India in 2012 covered the country’s merchandise trade deficit that year, according to a report by The Hindu.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com