Migrants’ remittances hold key to many developing economies of the world. The expatriates send money back home to provide financial support to their families that also help their native countries to check their balance of payments.
World Bank’s Migration and Development Brief estimates that the global remittances by overseas workers are expected to grow by 10.3% to $689 billion in 2018 – including $528 billion of officially recorded remittances to the developing countries.
TOP REMITTANCE RECIPIENTS
India ($78.5bn) – on the back of its large population, runt employment opportunities, and 16.1 million migrants in the international souk – will continue to remain the largest remittance recipient country in the world for 2018 too.
China ($67.4bn); Philippines ($33.7bn); Mexico ($33.7bn); Egypt ($25.7bn); Nigeria ($25.1bn); and Pakistan ($20.9bn) are the other developing countries receiving largest remittances, the Brief that tracks global migration and remittances flows, said.
In terms of growth, Indonesia was the star performer that flashed a stunning 24% growth in foreign remittances for 2018, after a lackluster and flat 2017 year. Expats’ remittances to Indonesia totaled $11.2 billion in 2018.
GCC COUNTRIES LEAD THE LARGEST REMITTANCE-SOURCE COUNTRIES DESPITE HEADWINDS
Even though the United States was the leading remittances source country with nearly $68bn in expats’ remittances yet the bulk of the foreign remittances ($119bn) in 2017 came from six GCC countries, according to WB Data on Remittance Outflows.
Founded in 1981, GCC – an acronym of Gulf Cooperation Council – is a political and economic bloc of six states in Arabian Peninsula – UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain who all together controls almost half of the world’s oil reserves.
With $44bn in foreign remittances, United Arab Emirates (UAE) alone was the second-largest remittances provider to the world in 2018. It is mostly a home of international migrants from Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan.
India is the major remittance recipient from the UAE, which alone accounts for about two-fifth of all the foreign remittances. Pakistan and Philippines are the next major remittance receivers from UAE with transfers of below 10% each.
According to UN 2013 estimate, the UAE population was about 9.2 million – attracting 7.8 million of both low and high-skilled international workers. It also has the highest proportion (85%) and fifth-largest stock of international emigrants in the world.
Saudi Arabia ($36.1bn) was the third-largest remittance provider in the world. It is the second-largest Arab state behind Algeria with an estimated population of over 33.4 million inhabitants – including more than 12 million non-Saudis.
Nonetheless, since the introduction of expat levy, the number of foreign workers in Saudi Arabia has constantly been declining. Slapped in July 2017, the tariff is forcing the international migrants to leave the Kingdom.
Moreover, feeling the heat of plummeting oil prices in the international market, remittances by expats in Saudi Arabia fell by 17.6% year-over-year in November while the new Saudi policies compelled to flee another 234,000 workers to leave the country in the Q2-2018.
Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain are the other four GCC countries that are supplying the largest workers’ remittances. As stated by GLMM, the ratio of foreign nationals in these GCC countries is 70%, 89%, 43%, and 53% respectively.
It is this incredible GCC’s ability to absorb expatriates, coupled with oil-enriched landscape and massive consumer spending that has obliged other countries to keep vying intensely for better ties with these Middle-Eastern member states.
However, Knomad – a World Bank initiative on migration & development – notes that employment opportunities in GCC countries have declined in 2017 and 2018; especially in Saudi Arabia due to Kingdom’s nationalization policies.
At the same time, the deployment of South Asian workers in GCC countries, with largest per capita share of foreign workers, is contracting as well. The trend has hit Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Nepal the most in the region.
Due to lower demand of foreign workers in GCC countries, the registration of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Nepali labors for overseas employment dropped substantially by 12%, 41%, 25%, and 5% respectively.
Nevertheless, Knomad paper believes that overall outflows from GCC countries are expected to remain buoyant since the United Arab Emirates – the regional largest remittance source – reported 13% growth in the first half of 2018.
GLOBAL REMITTANCES FORECAST
The 30th edition of the international monetary regulator said that due to continued recovery in Russian economy, the Europe and Central Asia region is forecasted to increase by 20% in 2018. The growth in India, Bangladesh, Mexico, and Egypt are likely to have given the impetus to the remittances.
US strong growth aided Mexico to remain the largest recipient of remittances (about 40% of the Latin American and Caribbean region’s total). China, India, Philippines, and Vietnam were the other leading recipients from the US.
RETURN MIGRATION AND REFUGEES
In European Union, there was a surge in the number of refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented migrants – resulting in increase of stock of detected potential returnees from 1.4 million in 2011 to around 5.5 million in 2018.
The number of undocumented migrants and detected deportees also proliferated from 1.5 million in 2011 to 3.2 million in 2017 in the United States and from nearly 3.9 million between March 2011 and August 2018 in Saudi Arabia.
Low and middle income countries (LMICs) are hosting about nine out of ten refugees. Since August 2017, around one million Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar to Bangladesh. Large movement of Venezuelan refugees was also witnessed to some countries in South America.
As of 2017, Turkey (3.5 million), Pakistan (1.4 million), Uganda (1.4 million), Lebanon (1.0 million), and Iran (1.0 million) were hosting the largest number of refugees from Syria (6.3 million), Afghanistan (2.6 million), South Sudan (2.4 million),and Sudan (0.7 million), according to UNCHR.
UNDESA estimates that there were about 258 million international migrants (including refugees) worldwide as of 2017 and expected to reach as high as 266 million in 2018. By 2017, the number of worldwide refugees (excluding Palestinians) totaled 19.9 million.