June 16: International Day of Family Remittances

Every year, the International Day of Family Remittances is observed on June 16 by the United Nations. The day is observed all over the world. This year the day is celebrated under the theme

Theme: Remittances are a lifeline

Highlights

• The day is celebrated to recognize the efforts of migrants living abroad and help improve the lives of their family members in their home countries.
• The first International Day of Family Remittances was celebrated in 2015. 
• The day encourages the public sector and private sector countries to make policies for the betterment of migrants and encourage remittances.

What is Remittance?

• The transfer of money by a foreign worker to his or her family in their home country is called remittance. 
• It is highly important as it is one of the largest financial inflows for the developing countries

Remittances of India

• According to the World Bank, the remittances of India are expected to fall by 23% in 2020 due to COVID-19 crisis. 
• The remittances of India were 83 billion USD in 2019. 
• Around 17.5 million Indians are living abroad. 
• Majority of them are in the gulf region, US, Western Europe and Canada.

World Remittances

• The World Bank has projected that the global remittances for the year 2020 is to reduce to around 20% due to COVID-19 crisis. 
• According to World Bank, the remittances are to fall to 445 billion USD this year as compared to 554 billion USD in 2019.