Remittances by non-resident Indians (NRIs) to India touched a record $129.4bn in 2024, with the October-December quarter accounting for the highest ever inflows of $36bn, according to data by India’s central bank.
This also marks the South Asian country receiving more than $100bn as remittances for the third year in a row.
India was followed by Mexico at a distant second position in 2024, with inflows estimated at nearly half of the South Asian country at $68bn, while China, which is estimated to have got $48bn during the year, was third.
India leads global remittances
Significantly remittances to India grew 17.4 per cent during the year compared to the global average estimated growth of 5.8 percent for the year, the Economic Times (ET) reported.
The surge in remittances is despite inflationary conditions in many source countries across North America and Europe.
The recovery of the job markets in the high-income countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, has been the key driver of remittances, the World Bank said in a blog.
Going forward, remittances to India are likely to remain elevated and are projected to increase to around $160bn in 2029. according to the central bank.
Globally, India has been among the top recipients for more than 25 years since the information technology boom in the nineties and has been consistently occupying the top place since 2008.
This led to a surge in services exports skilled professionals’ migration from India to developed economies in North America and Europe, resulting in them sending money to their family back home supplementing the traditional source of inflows from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.
Remittances are typically linked to employment conditions in the source country and migration pattern in the recipient country.
India’s stock of international migrants has tripled from 6.6 million in 1990 to 18.5 million in 2024, with its share in global migrants rising from 4.3 per cent to over 6 per cent during the same period.
Indian migrants in the GCC countries account for around half of the total Indian migrants in the world.
