Understanding remittances from Canada - the US$24 billion question

Remittances from Canada are important.   Remittances are defined by Wikipedia as “A remittance is a transfer of money by a foreign worker to an individual in his or her home country.”   Some of those countries are developing world countries and these remittances are important in helping families and friends with the cost of living, education etc.

The total remittances from Canada are almost US$24 billion ($23,909,000).  The total remittances around the world are about US$528 billion.  Here is a note on the largest countries receiving remittances from Canada.  As you can see not all are developing countries.   Here is a further note on remittances from Canada to developing countries.   People in Canada sent approximately US$15.7 billion to developing countries.  

Some countries receive a large percentage of their GDP from remittances, for example from Wikipedia citing World Bank figures “the top recipients of remittances in 2012 were Tajikistan (51.9%), Kyrgyzstan (31.4%), Nepal (24.7%), Moldova (24.6%), Samoa (23.5%), Lesotho (22.6%), Armenia (21.4%), Haiti (20.6%), and Liberia (20.4%).”

Some of my previous blogs on remittances are:

• Hudson Institute’s study on remittances shows Canada at 14.7 billion
• Remittances and the high cost of giving for the poor – consider this Avaaz petition
• 2010 Hudson Report Index of Global Philanthropy and Remittances – People in Canada remit 12.2 b
• Global Philanthropy is growing in Canada, but remittances and investment rule