Wednesday 18 July 2007

Arab expats sent home $ 40b in 2006


Bahrain Tribune - 14 July, 2007

Arab expatriates living outside the Middle East sent home about $ 40 billion in 2006, five per cent more than the year before, a World Bank report said. The remittances also include those made through informal channels. The report said the total remittances of Arab expatriates working in the Gulf region and abroad through formal channels, mostly banks, reached $ 24.7 billion by the end of 2006 as against $ 23.5 billion in 2005. Informal channels average about 50 per cent of the formal remittances with exchange rate fluctuations also affecting the flows periodically.An estimated 11.8 million Arabs live away from home, mostly in the Gulf, European countries, South East Asia and the US. The Middle East emerged as the fifth-largest recipient of remittances while Latin America topped the list with $ 53.4 billion followed by Asia and the Pacific region with $ 45.3 billion and South Asia with $ 35.7 billion, the report said. [Read more]

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