NRI remittances to touch $ 24 billion this year: Vayalar

Kochi, Oct 11 (UNI) India, which is already the highest recipient of overseas remittances in the world, is expecting NRI remittances to the tune of 24 billion USD this year, Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi said today..

Formally launching the collaborative 'e-remittance' facility of the private sector IndusInd Bank and the Qatar-based Doha Bank here, Mr Ravi said that forex exchange reserves were a comfortable 140 billion US dollars at present.

Non-resident Indian remittances, which were 23 billion USD last year were expected to go up to 24 billion USD this year.

Recalling NRIs' major role in shoring up the foreign exchange reserves to retrieve the gold pledged by India to the Bank of England before 1991, Mr Ravi said the liberalisation of the economy and globalisation were positive developments for India with the country was now ranked among the top five emerging economies of the world.

On the banking sector, Mr Ravi said doubts had been raised about allowing private sector banks to come back into the economy in a big way. However, the ''healthy competition'' provided by them to the public sector banks had made the entire banking sector more vibrant.

''Our experience has shown that both the private and the public sector can co-exist,'' he added.

At the same time, all countries made efforts to protect the public sector industries in national interest, Mr Ravi said while citing the intervention of the European leaders when NRI steel tycoon L N Mittal had bid for European steel giant Arcelor.

Mr Ravi said Kerala offered good investment opportunities in areas such as tourism and information technology.

Lauding IndusInd Bank for launching the NRI-centric e-remittance facility, Mr Ravi said this would help the workers in the Gulf countries to send money to their families in Kerala.

Earlier, IndusInd Bank Managing Director Bhaskar Ghose said the RBI had recently submitted the report of a special working group on the ''cost of NRI remittances'' to the government which was in the process of considering it.

On the e-remittance facility, he said this would provide NRIs seamless, instant, internet-based electronic fund transfer.

He said the 147 IndusInd branches, including 13 in Kerala, also catered to the other banking and financial needs of expatriate Indians to help channelise their remittances into productive investment areas.

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