Remittance outflows from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) continued to grow in 2009, rising by almost 8 percent, in spite of the drop in global remittance outflows last year, the World Bank said. The report, carried by Bank Audi MENA Weekly Monitor, said the growth recorded in 2009 was much lower than 2008, when remittance outflows from the region grew by more than 30 percent to reach $40 billion, with UAE and Saudi Arabia sharing the bulk of it. The World Bank noted that the growing trend is expected to continue in the current year, as Gulf economies return to healthy growth in 2010. The World Bank estimates suggest that the GCC countries have about 12 million expatriate workers, most of them from Asia and Africa, where remittances didn't decline as much as other regions such as Central Asia or Latin America. The bank said that the worst-case scenario predicted at the start of the economic recession was the mass exodus of expatriate workers from developed and developing economies, but the region was largely spared, with many workers in the GCC countries continuing to send remittances back home. The report cited as an example the 22 percent annual growth in remittance inflows to Pakistan to $5.2 billion in 2009, buoyed by significant growth in transfers from the UAE (up 127 percent), the United Kingdom (up 90 percent) and Saudi Arabia (up 19 percent). Also, remittance inflows to Bangladesh rose by 21 percent to reach $6.5 billion, with the majority of remittances originating from the GCC countries.
