The sudden fall in the value of Indian Rupee has brought a great relief for Indian expatriates, especially low income workers and laborers in the Kingdom who had been suffering a long period of unfavorable exchange rates. During the last few days, longer queues were visible in these money exchange centers as more and more Indians line up to make use of the good rate in money transfer. Last Thursday, the exchange rate hit a record low of Rs12.20 to one Saudi Riyal – a huge difference from the rate that prevailed a year ago. The huge outflow of foreign institutional investors' funds from the Indian stock market and heavy dollar demand caused the steepest intra-day fall of the rupee in a decade. Banking experts say that for the past one week Indian rupee has been facing immense pressure and its value has decreased drastically against Saudi Riyal. For the past 21 months as the Indian currency grew stronger, the Indian expatriates were suffering a great deal due to poor exchange rate of Indian Rupee against Saudi Riyal. According to a World Bank report, an estimated 5.7 million Indian workers abroad sent home $27 billion in 2007 to make India the world's top receiver of migrant remittances. A large portion of the money comes to India from expatriate workers in the Gulf region. The present trend is helping the Kingdom's 1.5 million Indian expatriates to send more money to their homes, especially the Muslims to celebrate Eid. An official at a money remittance center in Dammam said, “the percentage of money transfer to India has increased during the last one week compared to other days and it is clear that Indian expatriates are utilizing this sudden fall of exchange value.” “In June 2007, I sent SR1000 to my Non-Residence Account and it fetched me around Rs12,100. But after the Rupee became stronger, for the same amount of Saudi Riyal I got only Rs10,500. This made a huge difference to me and effected my family's day to day spending in India, but now I am happy that things are improving and hopefully this should keep continuing,” said Amanulla, who works as a salesman in a Al-Naghi group of companies in Dammam. “With the high inflation in the Kingdom, we are finding it very difficult to save money. Besides, the poor exchange rate of Saudi Riyal against Indian Rupee had increased our problems here. Now the sudden decline of Indian Rupee is a great relief for us,” said V. Aboobacker, who is working as operations manager in projects system group of companies. Naseer Firdouse, an Indian expat laborer, said he is planning to go on vacation next week to celebrate Eid. “I was waiting and expecting to get a good exchange rate since two months and I did not send money to India due to high currency rate. Now this is a very good rate for me and I will send it today.” In the past years, the boom in the Indian economy made Indian Rupee strong in the market. This had reduced money transfer to banks in India from Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries. The flow of remittance and the volume of money sent to India have increased after the rupee's huge slide. More and more people who previously withheld remittance are now approaching us with their savings as they get more now. They feel that their wait was worthwhile, said one of the officials at a remittance counter. __
