Latest report of the 2015 World Bank‘Migration and Development Brief’, states that Nigerians in the Diaspora sent home $21bn in 2015, this is a slight improvement from the $20.83bn remitted a year earlier.
The figures which was released by the bank this week states that remittances to developing countries grew only marginally in 2015, as weak oil prices and other factors strained the earnings of international migrants and their ability to send money home to their families.
The bank said the growth rate in 2015 was the slowest since the global financial crisis, as the global remittances, which include those to high-income countries, contracted by 1.7 per cent to $581.6bn last year, from $592bn in 2014.
The report from the World Bank reads: The slowing in remittances growth, which began in 2012, was exacerbated last year by low oil prices, which are taking a toll on many oil-exporting remittance-source countries, such as Russia and the Gulf Cooperation Council states.
“As a result, many remittance-receiving countries, including India, the world’s largest remittance recipient, and Egypt saw remittances contract in 2015, as flows from the GCC countries slowed considerably.
Remittances contracted by 20 per cent to countries in the Europe and Central Asia region, with the heaviest impacts on Tajikistan and Ukraine, as a struggling Russian economy, and depreciation of the Russian ruble against the dollar contributed to the decline in remittances to the region.”
The World Bank further disclosed that India retained its top spot in 2015, attracting about $69bn in remittances, down from $70bn in 2014. Other large recipients in 2015 were China, with $64bn; the Philippines, $28bn; Mexico, $25bn; and Nigeria, $21bn.
