Four million Indian expats remit 5 billion dollars annually: Study

Dubai, Aug 10 (UNI) The four million expatriate Indians in the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states remit an incredible five billion dollars annually, a study shows.

A survey by Dubai-based Gulf Research Centre (GRC) said foreign workers send a total 27 billion dollars annually, which is almost equal to nine per cent of GCC states' GDP.

GRC analyst N Janardhan said India and Pakistan together received about 60 billion dollars in remittances between 1993 and 2002.

There are 13 million expats in the GCC countries, a population which accounts for 70 per cent of the workforce.

The Asian workforce represents some 78 per cent of the total expatriate workforce in the UAE.

Expats comprise 88 per cent of the workforce in the UAE compared with 83 per cent in Qatar, 81 per cent in Kuwait, 72 per cent in Saudi Arabia, 55 per cent in Bahrain and 54 per cent in Oman.

Saudi Arabia accounts for 63 per cent of all remittances, by some distance the highest share of any GCC country.

UNI XC SI DS1340