United States is the second largest source of remittances for India after the UAE.
India tops the list of countries with the highest remittance sent by migrants to their home countries, according to a report by the Pew Research Center based on the World Bank data.
The report, released last week, revealed that remittance by migrants to their home countries has declined in 2016 by 1.4% from the previous year.
Remittance is defined as money and assets sent by migrants through formal channels like banks. Pew said, as the World Bank reports only remittances sent through formal channels, “the total amount of money transferred is likely significantly larger than what is reported, because these estimates do not include the transfer of other assets, such as gifts, or informal monetary transfers.”
According to Pew, migrants sent an estimated $574 billion to their home countries in 2016, the latest year for which complete data is available. At the same time, India received $62.7 billion by migrants from all over the world, followed by China ($61.0 billion), the Philippines ($31.1 billion) and Mexico ($28.6 billion).
Together, these four countries accounted for almost a third of all remittances sent in 2016. The study was conducted using the World Bank’s Migration and remittance Data published in November 2017.
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India stands third in outgoing remittance from the United States with $10.65 billion. In 2016, Mexico received the highest remittance from the United States amounting to $28 billion followed by China ($15 billion) and India.
The United States is the second highest source of foreign remittance for India, which received the highest remittance from UAE: $12.57.
Apart from the United States, all other countries in the top five are in the Gulf region. Saudi Arabia stands third with $10.22 billion followed by Kuwait ($4.17 billion) and Qatar ($3.76 billion).
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The Pew study noted that an estimated $574 billion was sent by migrants to relatives in their home countries in 2016.
“This is the second drop in global remittances since the global financial crisis. Despite this recent decline, remittances sent by migrants are still about double what they were a decade ago, before the sharp decline in the global economy during the late 2000s,” said Pew Research Centre.
According to the study, improved labor market conditions in the US have helped Latin American migrants’ capacity to send more money home.
“Most of the remittance dollars flowing to Latin America come from the U.S., which is home to two-thirds of all migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean,” said the report.