Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Remittances from Egyptian Expats Rise to $29B in 2018


Wed 10 Apr 2019 | 10:34 AM
Nawal Sayed

The volume of Egyptian expats remittances reached about $29 billion by the end of 2018, compared with $ 18.2 billion in 2017, with an annual increase of 17%, according to a World Bank report released in April, 2019.

The WB report revealed that Egypt is the fifth largest recipient of expatriate remittances in the world in 2018.

The report entitled “Migration and Remittances Recent Developments and Outlook” added that remittances from Egyptian expats led to increase the remittance growth in the Middle East last year by 9.1% year-on-year.

[caption id="attachment_44855" align="aligncenter" width="1322"]Egyptian expats remittances Figures in 2018- World Bank Report Egyptian expats remittances Figures in 2018- World Bank Report[/caption]

The World Bank forecast that remittances in the region will continue to grow this year, but at a slower pace around 3 percent due to modest growth in the euro area.

In 2018, in current U.S. dollar terms, the top five remittance recipient countries were India, China, Mexico, the Philippines, and Egypt.

As a share of gross domestic product (GDP) for 2018, the top five recipients were smaller economies: Tonga, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Haiti, and Nepal, according to the same report.

[caption id="attachment_44857" align="aligncenter" width="586"]Egyptian expats remittances Figures in 2018- World Bank Report Egyptian expats remittances Figures in 2018- World Bank Report[/caption]

While remittances to Egypt increased, remittances to Jordan were projected to decline by 1.4 percent in 2018.

The Remittances to Lebanon were set to grow at a moderate pace of around 1.8 percent.

In Dec, 2018, the Central Bank of Egypt reported that the remittances from Egyptian expatriates rose 8 percent during the first 10 months of 2018, reaching $21.4 billion, compared to $19.8 billion in the same months of 2017.

According to CBE's data, remittances of expatriates hit $2.1 billion during October, compared to $1.8 billion in September, with an increase of $298.9 million, or 17 percent.

CBE announced earlier that remittances from Egyptian expatriates rose 1.5 percent during the first quarter of fiscal year 2018/2019, reaching $5.9 billion, compared to $5.8 billion in the same quarter of 2017/2018.