The World Bank team of Dilip Ratha, Sanket Mohapatra and Ani Silwal has just published migration and Development brief 10 which projects a fall in remittance volumes of between 7 and 10% this year. This is bigger than the 5-8% drop forecast in March (which in turn is bigger than the forecast made in November 08).
However, there is good news in that the size of the remittance market is bigger than previously forecast and therefore even with the larger fall in the size of the market the World Bank team are still forecasting that the size of the market will be between USD304 billion and USD313 billion this year.
As ever, this report is a good read and is not all doom and gloom, in fact it is pretty positive and emphasises the vital role that remittances play. Of particular interest is a view that the decline in the US construction industry is bottoming out. This report is useful contexting for all money transfer businesses, says Leon Isaacs, managing director of IAMTN.
The report can be found at this link.
L.D.