The Indian diaspora has made the country proud by sending back $80 billion back to India. This has resulted in India retaining its top position as the world’s top recipient of remittances this year as well. This was announced by the World Bank on Saturday (8 December) via a report that it produced.

China trails second at $67 billion, followed by Mexico, Philippines at $34 billion and Egypt at $26 billion. Overall, the remittances that the developing countries’ received has improved overall by 10.8 per cent to touch $528 billion this year, Live Mint reported.

India’s total remittances contribute to 2.7 per cent of the country’s GDP. Some of the reasons that are attributed to the increase in remittances is due to the increasing oil prices having an impact on the outflows from countries belonging to the GCC. Additionally, developed countries are witnessing stronger economic conditions and adds to the reason why global remittances are increasing as well.

Due to reducing migration and slower economic growth, in 2019, the remittances will slow down to 4.3 per cent. For readers’ reference, GCC stands for Gulf Cooperation Council, which is a inter-governmental economic bloc consisting of countries such as UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.