Migration and Development Briefs

With Sanket

We have revised our forecasts for remittance flows to developing countries in the light of a downward revision to the World Bank’s global economic outlook (see our latest Migration and Development Brief 9). We now expect a sharper decline of 5 to 8 percent in 2009 (see figure 1 and table 1 below) compared to our earlier projections.

This decline in nominal dollar terms is small relative to the projected fall in private capital flows or official aid to developing countries. However, considering that officially recorded remittances registered double-digit annual growth in the past few years to reach an estimated $305 billion in 2008, an outright fall in the level of remittance flows as projected now will cause hardships in many poor countries.

South-South remittances from Russia, South Africa, Malaysia and India are especially vulnerable to the rolling economic crisis. Also the outlook remains uncertain for remittance flows from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Both low-income and middle-income countries are expected to see a similar decline – about 5 percent – in remittance inflows in 2009. Although newspapers are reporting a large number of migrants returning home, new migration flows are still positive, implying that the stock of existing migrants continues to increase. The persistence of the migrant stock will contribute to the persistence (or resilience) of remittance flows in the face of the crisis. Box 1 below outlines the reasons for expecting remittances to remain resilient during the crisis.