Global Arab Network | Migrants sent €32 billion from EU back home in 2008

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Migrants sent €32 billion from EU back home in 2008

Global Arab Network - - Gamal Ragay

Thursday, 11 February 2010 13:56

The amount of money home sent by migrants working in the EU to their former country of residence rose to €31.8 billion in 2008, compared with €31.3 billion the previous year, and €19.4 billion in 2004, according to figures released by Eurostat.

The increase in workers' remittances over recent years was mainly due to a sharp rise in extra-EU27 flows (from €11.5 billion in 2004 to 22.5 billion in 2008), while flows within the EU rose less rapidly (from €7.9 billion to €9.3 billion).

Consequently, the share of extra-EU27 remittances in the total has risen from 59% in 2004 to 71% in 2008.

In 2008, two thirds of the total outflow of workers' remittances from the EU27 came from Spain (€7.8 billion or 25% of total EU27 remittances), Italy (€6.4 billion or 20%), France (€3.4 billion or 11%) and Germany (€3.1 billion or 10%).

A 2008 study by FEMIP - the European Investment Bank's dedicated facility for the Mediterranean - had found that some €7.1 billion in remittances were ‘officially' transferred each year from Europe to eight Mediterranean countries (between €12 and €14 billion if you include ‘informal' transfers) - far exceeding total flows of both net foreign direct investment ($6.4 billion a year, 2000-2003) and official development assistance ($4.3 billion a year, 2000-2003) received by these countries.

Worker s' remittances, total outflows from EU27 Member States, bn euro

	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Total outflow of workers' remittances	19.4	23.7	28.4	31.3	31.8
Intra-EU flows	7.9	10.2	11.6	11.3	9.3
Extra-EU flows	11.5	13.4	16.8	20.0	22.5

Global Arab Network

Extracted from "Organization release"

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