Reflecting a robust growth, Pakistan received a total of $17,060 million in foreign remittances during the year 2014, according to the World Bank data released this week.
Officially recorded remittances to the developing world are expected to reach $440 billion in 2015, an increase of 0.9 percent over the previous year. Global remittances, including those to high income countries, are projected to grow by 0.4 percent to $586 billion.
In line with the expected global economic recovery next year, the global flows of remittances are expected to accelerate by 4.1 percent in 2016, to reach an estimated $610 billion, rising to $636 billion in 2017. Remittance flows to developing countries are expected to recover in 2016 to reach $459 billion, rising to $479 billion in 2017.
The top five migrant destination countries continue to be the United States, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Russia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The top five remittance recipient countries, in terms of value of remittances, continue to be India, China, Philippines, Mexico and Nigeria.
The global average cost of sending $200 held steady at 8 percent of the value of the transaction, as of the last quarter of 2014. Despite its potential to lower costs, the use of mobile technology in cross-border transactions remains limited, due to the regulatory burden related to combating money laundering and terrorism financing, says the brief.
International remittances sent via mobile technology accounted for less than 2 percent of remittance flows in 2013, according to the latest available data.
In addition to sending money to their families, international migrants hold significant savings in their destination countries. Diaspora savings attributed to migrants from developing countries were estimated at $497 billion in 2013, the latest data available.
“Total remittances in 2014 reached $583 billion. This is more than double the ODA in the world. India received $70 billion, China $64 billion, the Philippines $28 billion. With new thinking these mega flows can be leveraged to finance development and infrastructure projects,” said World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice President Kaushik Basu.
In a special analysis on leveraging migration for financing development, the brief estimates that as much as $100 billion in migrant savings could be raised annually by developing countries by reducing remittance costs and migrant recruitment costs, and mobilizing diaspora savings and philanthropic contributions from migrants.
Future inflows of remittances can be used as collateral to facilitate international borrowings by national banks in developing countries. Remittances can also facilitate access to international capital markets by improving sovereign ratings and debt sustainability of recipient countries.
The bank says because remittances are large and more stable than many other types of capital flows, they can greatly enhance the recipient country’s sovereign credit rating, thus lowering borrowing costs and lengthening debt maturity, says the brief. In a recent development, rating agencies have started accounting for remittances in country credit ratings, but given data difficulties, there is still room for further improvement.
And, the joint World Bank-IMF low-income country Debt Sustainability Framework now includes remittances in evaluating the ability of the countries to repay external obligations and their ability to undertake non-concessional borrowing from other private creditors.
