The World Bank expected that the diaspora transfers towards the Middle East and North Africa region would decrease by 19.6%, settling in the range of $47 billion, after increasing last year by 2.6%.
The World Bank attributed in its report, that decline to the slowdown of the global economy and the implications of the low price of oil in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
It also revealed that remittances from the Eurozone countries will decline, due to the impact of the Corona pandemic on the economy and the depreciation of the euro compared to the dollar.
The bank expects that expatriate remittances to the countries of the region will recover in the next year, but this will be at a slight pace, an increase of 1.6%, under the influence of modest growth in the euro area and weak remittances from the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Countries like Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, Palestine, and Tunisia are betting a lot on expatriate remittances that feed the foreign exchange balance and support bank deposits and provide revenues for expatriate families. The importance of these transfers are more evident in their relation to GDP, as they represent in Morocco about 7% of GDP, and rise in Palestine to 17.7%, 12.7% in Lebanon, 11.7 in Yemen and 11.6% in Egypt.
Source (New Arab newspaper, Edited)
