Guyana is projected to rake in US$280 million in remittances this year, US$27 million more than the US$253 million received last year, the World Bank’s latest Migration and Remittances Factbook 2011 says.
According to the report which was released on Monday, global remittances are expected to reach $440 billion by the end of this year, with $325 billion of this sum coming to developing countries. The World Bank estimates that after recovering by the end of this year, recorded remittances to developing countries will rise further in 2011 and 2012, possibly exceeding $370 billion in two years’ time.
The report said that Latin America and the Caribbean may rake in approximately US$58.1 billion in remittances during this year, up from the US$ 56.9 billion it received in 2009.
Remittances coming into Guyana, the report said, increased steadily from 2003 to 2008, before dropping in 2009.
In 2003, the figure recorded was US$99 million while US$278 million was recorded in 2008. While there was no projection by the body for remittances to leave Guyana this year, the report said that outward remittances last year was pegged at US$77 million.
“Remittances are a vital source of financial support that directly increases the income of migrants’ families,” said Hans Timmer, director of development prospects at the World Bank. “Remittances lead to more investments in health, education, and small business. With better tracking of migration and remittance trends, policy makers can make informed decisions to protect and leverage this massive capital inflow which is triple the size of official aid flows,” Timmer said.
Meantime, Dilip Ratha, manager of the migration and remittance unit at the World Bank, said “Remittances in 2008 and 2009 became even more of a lifeline to poor countries, given the massive decline in private capital flows sparked by the crisis”. He noted, however, that “high unemployment is prompting many migrant-receiving countries to tighten immigration quotas, which would probably slow the growth of remittance flows. Also uncertain currency movements can have unpredictable effects on remittance flows,” Ratha added.
In addition to crisis-related risks, there are major structural and regulatory changes in the global remittance market. Regulations to combat financial crime have become a roadblock to the adoption of new mobile money transfer technologies for cross-border remittances. “There is urgent need to reassess regulations for remittances through mobile phones and mitigate the operational risks,” Ratha said.
Meanwhile, the report places Guyana among the top ten countries for the migration rate as a percentage of its population.
According to the report, the stock of emigrants as a percentage of population is 56.8 percent, while the emigration rate of tertiary-education population has been tagged at 89 percent.
The top destination countries for Guyanese emigrants are the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Suriname Venezuela, Antigua and Barbuda, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, the Netherlands and Brazil.
