World Bank report released at the weekend has said remittances from
Nigerians currently in the Diaspora are estimated to increase up to $21
billion (N3.28 trillion) for the 2013 fiscal year.
The report reveals that Nigeria has a strong and growing Diaspora
community, especially in the United States, Europe and Asia and other
fast growing economies across Africa, many of who are responsible for
the remittance flows.
It also stated that Nigeria was among the top 10 recipients of
migrant remittances in 2011 with $11 billion remitted by her teeming
citizens in Diaspora.
The report, which was prepared by the Migration and Remittances Team
of the World Bank’s Development Prospects Group, also projected that
developing countries would receive over $410 billion in remittances this
year, adding that remittances to the developing world are expected to
grow by 6.3 per cent in 2013 to $414 billion and are projected to cross
the half-trillion mark by 2016.
The report, which was contained in a statement at the weekend,
further disclosed that global remittances, including those to
high-income countries, are estimated to touch $550 billion by the end of
this year and reach a record $707 billion by 2016, adding that India
and China alone would represent nearly a third of total remittances to
the developing world this year.
“The estimates reflect recent changes to the World Bank Group’s
country classifications, with several large remittance recipient
countries, such as Russia, Latvia, Lithuania and Uruguay no longer
considered developing countries. In addition, the data on remittances
also reflects the International Monetary Fund’s changes to the
definition of remittances that now exclude some capital transfers,
affecting numbers for a few large developing countries like Brazil.
“These latest estimates show the power of remittances. For a country
like Tajikistan they constitute half the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
For Bangladesh, remittances provide vital protection against poverty. In
terms of volume, India with $71 billion of remittances tops the global
chart. To put this in perspective, this is just short of three times the
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) it received in 2012,” the report added.
Lending credence to this, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist
of the World Bank, Kaushik Basu, noted that remittances act as a major
counter-balance when capital flows weaken as happened in the wake of the
US Fed announcing its intention to reign in its liquidity injection
programme. Basu added that when a nation’s currency weakens, inward
remittances rise and, as such, they act as an automatic stabilizer.
Meanwhile, growth of remittances has been robust in all regions of
the world, except for Latin America and the Caribbean, where growth
decelerated due to economic weakness in the United States. The top
recipients of officially recorded remittances for 2013, according to the
report, are India (with an estimated $71 billion), China ($60 billion),
the Philippines ($26 billion), Mexico ($22 billion), Nigeria ($21
billion) and Egypt ($20 billion).
Other large recipients, the report said, include Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Vietnam and Ukraine, adding that as a percentage of GDP, the
top recipients of remittances in 2012 were Tajikistan (48 per cent),
Kyrgyz Republic (31 per cent), Lesotho and Nepal (25 per cent each) and
Moldova (24 per cent).
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