India becomes first country to get over $100 bn in remittances: UN

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, May 8

India received over $111 billion in remittances in 2022, which was the largest in the world, according to the latest report from the UN International Organisation for Migration.

The report noted that migrant workers who were sending these huge sums were vulnerable to financial exploitation, workplace abuse, unsafe working environment and xenophobia.

India-UAE, India-US, India-Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh-India were among the top 10 international country-to-country migration corridors, the report said. The leading country for outbound migration, India was the 13th as the destination country for immigrants (44.8 lakh).

The final figures confirm the World Bank’s prediction made in December 2022 that India will be the first country in the world to receive $100 billion from remittances. Though remittances to the rest of the South Asian countries declined by 10 per cent, they rose by 12 per cent in India’s case, it had said. Speaking a few weeks later, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had welcomed the prognosis.

“India was well above the rest, receiving more than $111 billion. Mexico was the second-largest remittance recipient in 2022, a position it also held in 2021 after overtaking China, which historically had been the second-biggest recipient after India,” said the World Migration Report.