CROSS BORDER MIGRATION

 Movement of people across places countries and continents occurred historically primarily due to push and pull factors.While push factors were natural calamities,war, pandemic,  ethnic conflicts, poverty and poor livelihood conditions, pull forces refers  to better economic and social conditions prospects for education,employment and  high standards of living.

According to the World Migration Report 2022, published by International organisation for Migration (IOM) a Geneva based intergovernmental organization the number of international migrants has grown from 84 million in 1970 to 281 million in2020 which equates to 3.6 percent of global. population. However due to Covid19 global health crisis number of air passengers dropped globally 60 percent in 2020 to 1.8 billion from 4.5 billion in 2019 indicating a drastic decline in global mobility.At the same time internal displacement due to disaster, conflict and violence rose to 40.5 million from 31.5 million in 2019 and Asia reported largest displacement due to disasters with Phillipines,China and India reporting maximum new displacement respectively.

Cross border or international migrants include migrant workers, refugees and development practitioners.Work is the major reason to migrate and migrant workers constitute a large chunk of international migrants.As per UN Migrant Database number of Indians living abroad has grown steadily since 1990 to reach 1.80 crores by 2020 with an average growth rate of 3.4% and showing maximum growth during the period 2005 to 2010.According to WMR 2022 Mexico has the second largest emigrant population (70 lakhs) followed by China and Syria. After India and Mexico, China account for the largest number of people who have left their home country to emigrate.Accoding to IOM data there are more than 10.7 million overseas Chinese if we include 60 million  of their descendants.Overseas Chinese made significant contributions to South East Asia, Europe and America pioneering the construction of roads bridges and land reclamation. According to  Ministry of External Affairs report there are 32million non resident  Indians ( NRIs )and overseas citizens of India (OCI) residing outside India comprising world's largest diaspora.Indian emigration largely started as 'indentured labour' to work in colonial plantations,later to neighbouring countries like Ceylon and  Nepal followed by high profile migrants including medical professionals,nurses scientists and technocrats to  developed countries like UK,USA, France and Germany. Major break through in Indian emigration occurred in mid 1970s when large numbers of semi skilled and skilled workers flocked into capital rich labour short Gulf countries.After introduction of economic reforms in 1990s large number of ICT and other professionals and students are emigrating to foreign countries both for  short period and long period depending on their requirements and facilities available. As per WMR data UAE is the biggest host of Indians with 34 lakhs in 2020 followed by USA 27 lakhs and Saudi Arabia 25 lakhs.

Compiling exact remittances made by migrants is a difficult task because apart from official channels they make unauthorised and hawala transactions and partly they remit in kind as well.According to World Bank the data supplied by them do not capture unrecorded flows through formal or informal channels, and the actual magnitude of remittances are likely to be larger than available estimates.In 2020 India received highest remittances of $ 83.2 billion followed by China $ 59.5billion , Mexico $ 42.9billion, Phillipines $34.9 billion, Egypt $29.6 billion and Pakistan $26.1 billion.With regard to the major source of remittances for decades USA has been the top sending country with a total outflow  of $68 billion in 2020 followed by UAE $54.3 billion, Saudi Arabia $43.2 billion Switzerland $ 28 billion, Germany $22 billion and China$18.1 billion.

  As per  world  bank data remittances inflow to India from 1975 to 2020 showed that it consistently increased and peaked in 2019 before Covid19 to a record high of $83.3 billion .NRI deposits have grown from $40 billion towards the end 2001 to$139 billion in April 2022 accounting for an average increase of 9%. Those deposits have averaged around $140 billion since 2020.It has been observed that transaction costs is much less in Mexico than in India. Remittances are expected to rise in India in the coming years considering many projections made in this direction . Currently we are facing problems of trade deficit due to  heavy growth of imports  against exports and current account deficit where trade and invisible account shows deficit coupled with disturbing trend of depreciation of Indian rupee against US dollar and major currencies. Remittances can act as a safety valve to ease our current account deficit provided if meticulously planned and operated.Revival of foreign currency non resident account scheme with adequate incentive can also attract more foreign exchange flows to the country.