Guess how much money exactly was sent back to the Caribbean from immigrants globally last year?
If you guessed USD 13.5 billion, then you are correct. According to latest remittance inflow data from the World Bank, tallied for the region by News Americas, that’s the astounding amount of money that was sent back to the Caribbean alone by immigrants globally.
The latest World Bank study on Migration and Remittances said money transfers to low- and middle-income countries, including the Caribbean and Latin America, rebounded to a record level in 2017 after two consecutive years of decline.
The Dominican Republic led the Caribbean region with the highest receipts of remittances – a whopping USD 6.2 billion in 2017.
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The DR was followed by Jamaica with USD 2.5 billion and Haiti at USD 2.4 billion.
Bermuda was fourth on the Caribbean list, receiving USD 1.4 billion in 2017.
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Guyana was way down the ranks, moving out of the billions category, with USD 275 million in money transfers sent there in 2017. The South American CARICOM nation was followed by Curacao with USD 160 million.
The oil rich twin-island of Trinidad & Tobago received USD 150 million in 2017 while Barbados received USD 112 million.
READ: Six Caribbean Nations See The Highest Remittances For 2016
Other Caribbean nations received much lower receipts in 2017 as follows:
Dutch Sint Maarten – USD 64 million
Dominica – USD 59 million
St. Vincent & the Grenadines – USD 42 million
St. Lucia – USD 32 million
Antigua & Barbuda – USD 31 million
Kitts & Nevis – USD 11 million
Aruba – USD 8 million
Suriname – USD 7 million
Grenada – USD 1 million
Globally
The Bank estimates that officially recorded remittances to low-and middle-income countries worldwide, reached $466 billion in 2017, an increase of 8.5 percent over $429 billion in 2016.
Global remittances, which include flows to high-income countries, grew 7 percent to $613 billion in 2017, from $573 billion in 2016.
Remittances are expected to continue to increase in 2018, by 4.1 percent to reach $485 billion. Global remittances are expected to grow 4.6 percent to $642 billion in 2018.
Remittances flows into Latin America and the Caribbean grew 8.7 percent in 2017, reaching another record high of nearly $80 billion.
The main factors given are stronger growth in the United States and tighter enforcement of U.S. immigration rules, which may have impacted remittances as migrants remitted savings in anticipation of shorter stays in the United States.