Highlights:
- World Bank to reduce remittances
- India’s remittances to drop by almost 23%
- The decision comes due to the economic crisis caused by the pandemic
The World Bank has said that due to the global recession caused by the Coronavirus pandemic the remittances to India are likely to take a steep decline of around 23% from USD 83 billion in 2019 to USD 64 billion in 2020.
Even the remittance overall given globally are en route to a great decline of around 20% in 2020 due to the economic crisis caused by the deadly pandemic and shutdowns put in place to stop its spread, said a report of the World Bank on the impact of COVID-19 on migration and remittance which was released on Wednesday.
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The projected fall is the sharpest decline in remittances in recent history is caused by the fall in the wages and the unemployment of the migrant workers at large. These tend to be much more vulnerable to the losses of wages and employment as the economic crisis hit any country said the report.
The report said, “In India, remittances are projected to fall by about 23 per cent in 2020, to USD 64 billion — a striking contrast with the growth of 5.5% and receipts of USD 83 billion seen in 2019,”.
David Malpass, President World Bank Group said that the remittances for any developing country are a “vital source of income”.
He added, “The ongoing economic recession caused by COVID-19 is taking a severe toll on the ability to send money home and makes it all the more vital that we shorten the time to recovery for advanced economies,”. He said that remittances help families afford the basic needs including food and healthcare.
He said, “As the World Bank Group implements fast, broad action to support countries, we are working to keep remittance channels open and safeguard the poorest communities’ access to these most basic needs,”.
India is not the only country to see the decline in remittances as it is expected to fall across all of the World Bank Group regions which will be most notable in Europe and Central Asia (27.5%), followed by Sub-Saharan Africa (23.1 per cent), South Asia (22.1 per cent), the Middle East and North Africa (19.6 per cent), Latin America and the Caribbean (19.3 per cent), and East Asia and the Pacific (13 per cent).
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Pakistan, too, will see a decline of around 23% where World Bank projects their remittances will drop to USD 17 billion in 2020 from USD 22.5 billion in 2019 when the remittances grew by over 6%.
Remittances Bangladesh are projected to drop to USD 14 billion, which would be a drop of around 22%. Nepal and Sri Lanka, both, could see a decline in remittances of 14% and 19% respectively, in 2020.
The global tally of infect cases of COVID-19 which reported have reached 2,639,704 while 184,280 of them have already lost their lives.
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