IMF | Statistics 1
Key Issues on Compiling Remittances Statistics in the Arab Region and
New Challenges
The 9th Meeting of the Technical Committee of the Arab Statistics Initiative “Arabstat”
Malik Bani Hani Senior Economist,
Balance of payments Division November 9 -10, 2022
Outline
• Importance of remittances (globally, at regional level)
• Definition of Remittances
• Data Gaps and Compilation issues
• Way Forward
IMF | Statistics 3
Importance of Personal Remittances: Globally
•
Recent data released showed that personal remittances receipts reached 698.2 bn in 2021 ( 10.3%).•
During the COVID-19 pandemic, and despite projections to the contrary, remittances proved resilient ( 0.65% in 2020).•
Remittances have been the largest source of external finance flows to low-and middle-income countries (LMICs).•
Remittances to LMICs have been about three times the volume of Official Development Assistance (ODA).Importance of Personal Remittances: Globally
Source: Balance of Payments and International Investment Position - BOP/IIP Home - IMF Data
* Only include personal transfers and compensation of employees (Capital transfers between households are not included.
- 100,000 200,000 300,000 400,000 500,000 600,000 700,000 800,000
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Global Personal Remittances*
Credit Debit Global Discrepency
IMF | Statistics 5
Importance of Personal Remittances: Arab Region
Source: Balance of Payments and International Investment Position - BOP/IIP Home - IMF Data
* Data for Somalia, Syria and UAE are not available.
0 10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000
Remittances Inflow s 2017 - 2021, USD million
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000
Remittances Outflow s 2017 - 2021, USD million
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Outline
• Importance of remittances (globally, at regional level)
• Definition of Remittances
• Data Gaps and Compilation issues
• Way Forward
IMF | Statistics 7
Remittances: Definition According to BPM ad
RCG
Remittances represent household income from foreign economies arising mainly from the temporary or
permanent movement of people to those economies.
Remittances are largely sent or given by:
individuals who have migrated to a
new economy and become residents
there
short-term workers (e.g.,
border and seasonal) temporarily employed in an economy in which
they are not resident
workers employed by nonresident employers in the
home economy
Where We Could Find
Migrant Transfers in BOP?Migrant Transfers
Personal Transfers
Compensation Of
employees
Capital Transfers
Financial Account
Other components
Direct Investment
Other Investment /
Deposits
Other: portfolio investment (Equity – Debt
Securities), Loans
Other current account components:
such as travel, other secondary
income
Personal Remittances
IMF | Statistics 9
Outline
• Importance of remittances (globally, at regional level)
• Definition of Remittances
• Data Gaps and Compilation issues
• Way Forward
Data Gaps and Compilation Issues
➢ Not all countries compile remittances statistics.
➢ Misclassification (investment- travel, other)
➢ Limited data coverage
▪
formal vs informal channels
❑ Banks - ITRS
❑ MTOs
❑ Cash
❑ In kind
❑ Hawalas.
▪
regulated vs non-regulated
▪
grossing vs netting data
➢ Estimation models vs migration data availability
➢ Geographical breakdown are not compiled.
IMF | Statistics 11
New challenges: Digitalization
❑ New players and channels
▪
Mobile money
❑ Mobile payments companies
❑ Communications companies
▪
Crypto assets
Outline
• Importance of remittances (globally, at regional level)
• Definition of Remittances
• Data Gaps and Compilation issues
• Way Forward
IMF | Statistics 13
Way Forward
▪
Improvements in source data: MTOs- banks, other regulated units, surveys.▪
Improving compilation methodology (misclassifications; inconsistency;duplications)
▪
Developing models of capturing/estimating the informal flows of remittances✓ COVID 19 Pandemic: unique opportunity for attempting at estimating the size of unregulated flows. the temporary stop put to informal channels by travel restrictions may be thought of as an exogenous experiment that can help identifying the size of unrecorded flows.
▪
Improving data dissemination practices (bilateral breakdown; new data by country, by gender, and by type/channel).Final remarks
▪ IMF’s Statistics Department has an extensive capacity development program (bilateral TA and training courses) oriented to provide advice on methodology, address data
consistency and compilation issues
▪ The World Bank Launched on March 9, 2022, an International Working Group to Improve Data on Remittances under the auspices of KNOMAD and in coordination with top source and destination countries for remittances, and the IMF, UN, OECD, and Eurostat.
► Main objective: producing more timely and better-quality statistics on remittances.
IMF | Statistics 15
