GCC foreign workers’ home remittances totaled $74.5bn in 2011

Remittances to their home countries by foreigners working in GCC countries has reached US $74.5 Billion (SR279.4 Billion) in 2011, according media reports citing World Bank data. The number of foreign workers in the GCC countries stood at 15.1 million at the end of 2010, representing 36.3% of the GCC’s total population, which is estimated at 41.7 million in 2010, the report said. Saudi Arabia ranked first in the volume of remittances within the GCC countries, at $28.5 Billion in the same year, followed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) $18.2bn, Kuwait ($11.8bn), Oman ($7.2bn), Qatar ($6.8bn) and Bahrain ($2.1bn). India topped the list of recipient countries of foreign remittances from the GCC countries with $29.7bn, or 39.9% of the overall remittances, followed by Egypt having received $6.9bn (9.3%), Pakistan with $6bn (8%), the Philippines with $5bn (7.6%), Bangladesh with $3.1bn (4.1%), Sri Lanka with $2.7bn (3.6%), Nepal with $1.9bn (2.4%), Yemen with $1.2bn (1.6%) and Jordan with $962 million (1.3%), the report said. Qatar ranked first in having the highest percentage of foreign workers compared to the national population, where foreign residents reached 1.3 million, or 76.8% of the population, which stood at 1.7 million by the end of 2010, followed by the UAE with 3.3 million foreign residents (63.1%), Kuwait with 2.1 million (58.6%), Oman (32.8%), Bahrain (28.5%), and Saudi Arabia (26.4%), the report said. Indians constituted the largest segment of foreign workers. They were 4.9 million, or 32.2% of total workers, by the end of 2010, followed by Pakistan with 2.0 million (13.1%), Egypt with 1.6 million (10.8%), Yemen with 955,900 (6.3%), and the Philippines 934,800 (6.2%), the report said. Last April, a World Bank report said global remittance flow increased 10.77% in 2012 to 514 billion, up from 464 billion in 2011. Remittances to the developing world are estimated to have grown by 5.3% to 401 billion last year, up from 380 billion, the report said.