• India was the largest recipient of remittances in 2020, as per the report, “Migration and Development Brief “ released by the World Bank on May 12, 2021.
• India has been the largest recipient of remittances since 2008.
• However, the remittance received by India in 2020 was over USD 83 billion, which is a drop of 0.2 percent from 2019 (USD83.3 billion).
• Globally, the remittance flow was USD 540 billion in 2020, which is 1.9% lower as compared to that of 2019, when it was USD 548 billion.

What is Migration and Development Brief? 

• The Migration and Development Brief is an annual report which provides updates on global trends in migration and remittances flows to the low-income and middle-income countries .
• The report highlights developments related to migration-related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators: increasing the volume of remittances as a percentage of gross domestic product (SDG indicator 17.3.2), and reducing remittance costs (SDG indicator 10.c.1).

Top Five Countries

• The top five remittance recipient countries in 2020, in current US dollar terms were India, China, Mexico, the Philippines, and Egypt.
• The top five recipients in 2020, as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) were, by contrast, smaller economies: Tonga, Lebanon, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and El Salvador.

Top Source Country For Remittance

• The largest remittance-sending country in 2020 was United States (USD68 billion).
• It was followed by the UAE (USD43 billion), Saudi Arabia (USD34.5 billion), Switzerland (USD27.9 billion), Germany (USD22 billion), and China (USD18 billion).
• From India. the Remittances outflow in 2020 was USD 7 billion, against USD 7.5 billion in 2019.

Driving Force of Remittance

• The main reasons of remittance flows were migrants’ desire to help their families, to send money home by cutting consumption or drawing on savings.