NRI remittances to touch US$ 24 billion this year:Vayalar

Kochi, Oct 11 (UNI) India, which is already the highest recipient of overseas remittances in the world, is expecting NRIs to remit US$ 24 billion to the country 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 at a comfortable 140 billion US Dollars at present. Non-resident Indian remittances, which were US$ 23 billion last year, were expected to go up to US$ 24 billion this year.

Recalling that NRIs had played a major role in shoring up the forex reserves to retrieve the gold pledged by India to the Bank of London before 1991, Mr Ravi said the liberalisation of the economy and globalisation had been positive developments for India. The country was now ranked among the top five emerging economies of the world, he said.

Talking of 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, he added.

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

At the same time, all countries made efforts to protect the public sector industries in the national interest, Mr Ravi said while citing the intervention of the European leaders when NRI steel tycoon L N Mittal had bid to buy 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 to the government the report of a special working group on the ''cost of NRI remittances'' and the government was in the process of considering it.

Talking of the e-remittance facility, he said this would provide NRIs seamless, instant, internet-based electronic funds transfer.

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

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