India remains world's top remittance recipient

New Delhi, May 13

India has once emerged as the largest remittance receiving country in 2021, while Mexico pushed China to the third slot, according to the World Bank.

India received remittances worth over $89 billion in 2021, which was a healthy 8 per cent higher than the $ 82.73 billion in 2020. Despite the world having been affected badly by Covid in 2020, the remittances in that year were a shade over the $82.69 billion in the non-Covid year of 2019. Some of the increase is accounted for by the falling value of the rupee vis-à-vis the dollar.

For the current year too, India’s inbound remittances will continue to rise, helped by one of the lowest transaction costs in the world. Globally, the average cost of sending $200 is 6 per cent, but it is cheapest to send money to South Asia (4.3%) and most expensive to send to Sub-Saharan Africa (7.8%).

In total, remittance flows to low and middle-income countries are expected to increase by 4.2 per cent to reach $630 billion in 2022.