India tops global remittances received $69 bn in 2012

India is the largest recipient of remittances in the world, receiving USD 69 billion in 2012, the World Bank has said.India topped the list of countries receiving remittances, followed by China (USD60 billion), the Philippines (USD24 billion), Mexico (USD23 billion) and Nigeria and Egypt (USD21 billion each), it said on Friday.
Other large recipients include Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Lebanon. 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 per cent to reach an estimated USD 401 billion in 2012.
Remittances to developing countries are expected to grow by an annual average of 8.8 per cent for the next three years and are forecast to reach USD 515 billion in 2015, it added.
“Migration and remittances offer a vital lifeline for millions of people and can play a major role in an economy’s take-off. They enable people to partake in the global labour market and create resources that can be leveraged for development and growth.
“But they are also a source of political contention, and for that very reason deserving of dispassionate analysis,” said Kaushik Basu, the World Bank’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics.
Officially recorded remittance flows to South Asia are estimated to have increased sharply by 12.8 per cent to USD 109 billion in 2012, the World Bank report said.
This follows growth averaging 13. 8 per cent in each of the previous two years, it added. As a percentage of GDP, the top recipien
ts 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 per cent), the report said.
Remittance flows to developing countries have more than quadrupled since 2000.
Global remittances, including those to high-income countries, are estimated to have reached USD 514 billion in 2012, compared to USD 132 billion in 2000, the report added.
The World Bank had on Saturday announced the establishment of the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (KNOMAD), envisioned to become a global hub of knowledge and policy expertise on migration issues.
KNOMAD was initiated in response to the rapid growth in migration and remittances over the last decade.
Nearly one billion people — that is, one out of every seven persons on the planet — have migrated internally and across international borders in search of better opportunities and living conditions, with profound implications for development.