Remittances to developing nations like India are expected to increase from USD 436 billion last year to USD 440 billion in 2015, a UNDP report said today.
With USD 70 billion, India was top recipients of remittances in 2014, said the Human Development Report 2015 of the the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
"Officially recorded remittances to developing countries are expected to increase from USD 436 billion in 2014 to USD 440 billion in 2015, it said.
The top recipients in 2014 were India with USD 70 billion or 4 per cent of its GDP, China ($64 billion, less than 1 per cent of GDP), the Philippines (USD 28 billion, 10 per cent) and Mexico (USD 25 billion, 2 per cent).
As per the report, officially recorded global remittances totalled USD 583 billion, or more than four times the global official development assistance, in 2014 and are projected to reach USD 586 billion in 2015.
Remittances have been a major source of foreign exchange reserves for many developing countries, with considerable macroeconomic implications.
The work of overseas workers and their remittances have helped advance human development in both source and destination countries, it said, adding that between 1990 and 2013 the number of international migrants worldwide rose more than 92 million to 247 million with most of the growth between 2000 and 2010.
"It is expected to surpass USD 250 million in 2015. Of the 143 million in developed countries, 40 per cent were born in a developed country," the report said, and added around half of international migrants are women.
On population growth and structure, the report said between 2015 and 2050, the world's population is projected to rise from 7.3 billion to 9.6 billion. Most of this growth will be in developing countries -- from 6 billion to 8.2 billion.
One dimension of the population growth, it added is the expansion of a sizable global middle class -- households with daily expenditure of USD 10-100 per capita (in purchasing power parity terms).
"The global middle class is expected to be 4.9 billion - nearly 57 percent of the global population - in 2030, with 3.2 billion in Asia and the Pacific, mostly in China and India.
"Consumption by the middle class in the 10 countries with the largest middle-class population (Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, the Russian Federation and the United States) is forecast to be USD 38 trillion in 2030," the UNDP report said.
The report further said between 1990 and 2015 income
poverty in developing country regions fell by more than two-thirds. The number of extreme poor people worldwide fell from 1.9 billion to 836 million.
The child mortality rate rate fell by more than half and under-five deaths fell from 12.7 million to 6 million.
Worldwide, it said the work of 80 million workers in health and education has helped enhance human capabilities. More than a billion workers in services have contributed to human progress.
"In China and India 23 million jobs were created in clean energy, allowing workers to contribute to environmental sustainability, the report added.
The report said that "if Internet access in developing countries were the same as in developed countries", an estimated USD 2.2 trillion in GDP could be generated, with more than 140 million new jobs - 44 million in Africa and 65 million in India.
Long-term productivity in developing countries could be boosted by up to 25 per cent, it added.
