What: Remittance by migrant workers
Who: India on top
How much: 69 billion US dollars
- According to the ‘RemitSCOPE – Remittance markets and opportunities – Asia and the Pacific’ report, India has become the largest remittance-receiving country in the world.
- As per the report Indian migrant workers sent 69 billion US dollars in 2017 to their homes in India.
- Remittances to the Asia-Pacific region amounted to 256 billion dollars in 2017.
- The report says that Indians sent 69 billion Dollars, Chinese 64 billion Dollars and the Philippines migrant workers sent 33 billion Dollars. These are the three largest remittance-receiving countries in the world in 2017.
- Worldwide, an estimated 40 percent of the total value of remittances go to rural areas, the report says. However, in the Asia-Pacific region, remittances go disproportionally to countries with a majority of rural populations such as Nepal 81 per cent, India 67 per cent, Vietnam 66 per cent, Bangladesh 65 per cent, Pakistan 61 per cent and the Philippines 56 per cent.
- According to the report, cash-to-cash transactions remain by far the most common form of transfer. It is only recently that technology is beginning to move markets towards account-to-account transfers through digital operations.
- There are now more than one million payment locations through the region, reflecting a greater digitalisation of transactions.
