Asia and Oceania receive more than US$113 billion
in remittances annually –
the highest regional total
in the world.
Migration
There are over 50 million migrants from Asia and
Oceania worldwide. Their main destinations are the
United States, the Russian Federation and, in the case
of the Pacific, New Zealand. Emerging destination
countries for migrants from India – the region’s main
exporter of migrants, with 22 per cent of the total –
include Malaysia and the Arab oil-exporting countries.
There is also significant intraregional migration to
Australia, China (Hong Kong), Japan and Singapore,
while Central Asian migrants go predominantly to the
Russian Federation and Kazakhstan.
Remittances
Asia and Oceania receive more than US$113 billion
in remittances annually – the highest regional total
in the world. India and China are the top recipient
countries, receiving US$24.5 billion and US$21 billion
respectively. Transfers make up 3 per cent of regional
GDP. However, remittances to the smaller economies
(Indonesia, Nepal and Tajikistan) constitute a large
portion of per capita income. On average, remittances
in Asia and Oceania represent 15 per cent of exports.
Rural remittances
The flow of remittances into rural areas in Asia
is among the highest. This is partly because half
the Asian countries are 65 per cent rural. The impact
of remittances among developing countries in
Asia is greater than in other parts of the world:
in Asian countries that are highly rural, remittances
as a percentage of GDP are among the highest
in the world.
Market and financial access
The marketplace for money transfers is mixed, with a
competitive industry sending money predominantly
from China (Hong Kong), the Russian Federation and
Singapore, and with a less competitive and overly
regulated corridor sending from Japan and Malaysia.
Parallel to these industries are informal money
transfer businesses, coupled with the widespread
practice of hand-carrying money when travelling.
Consequently, transaction costs vary significantly.
Remittance costs to Central Asia, for example, are
among the lowest (if not the lowest) in the world,
at an average of 3 per cent per transaction. In some
parts of Asia, transfers are influenced by technological
innovation, as in the case of mobile phone transfers
in the Philippines.
Access to banking and other financial services varies
greatly within the region. In many Asian countries,
migrants and their dependents do not have access
to basic financial services. South-eastern Asians
(Filipinos and Indonesians, for example) have more
financial opportunities than those living in countries
such as Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, where less than
10 per cent of the inhabitants have bank accounts,
or the Indian State of Kerala, with only 11 per cent.
Source: IFAD
