India has the most receipt of remittances in the latest UN figures covering 2018, sending back $78.6bn which is a 14% increase on the $68.9bn of inflows in 2015.
The statistics in the UN’s International Organisation for Migration report, published on 27 November, further revealed that China’s receipt of $67.4bn was the second biggest in the world, up 5.4% from $63.9bn in 2015, followed by Mexico with $35.7bn, up 35.7% from $26.2bn.
This logically reflects the 2019 figures published by the UN in September showing that India had the largest number of migrants living abroad (17.5m), followed by Mexico (11.8 million) and China (10.7 million).
India’s diaspora was distributed mainly across the UAE (3.4m people), US (2.7m) and Saudi Arabia (2.4m)
The United States remained the top remittance-sending country ($68bn) followed by the United Arab Emirates ($44.4bn) and Saudi Arabia ($36.1bn).
Demystify human mobility
At the launch of the report, during the 2019 IOM Council meeting, its director general António Vitorino said: “IOM has an obligation to demystify the complexity and diversity of human mobility.
“As this report shows, we have a continuously growing and improving body of data and information that can help us ‘make better sense’ of the basic features of migration in increasingly uncertain times.”
First published 20 years ago, this tenth edition in the World Migration Report series provides the latest data and information on migration as well as analysis of complex and emerging migration issues.