GFRD2015 Media

Italy’s much maligned migrants are providing a crucial lifeline to families and friends in third world countries by sending home billions of euros, new figures show. Kumar Rakesh is an immigrant who has been living in Italy since 2000, and runs an internet cafè in Rome. Every month he sends money back to his family in the Punjab region of India, near Pakistan.

Le rimesse degli immigrati dall’Europa verso i Paesi d’origine nel 2014 sono state pari a 109,4 miliardi di dollari, un fattore di sviluppo che potrebbe portare molti piu’ benefici con un accesso a programmi finanziari per investirli e servizi di trasferimento denaro piu’ competitivi.

El estudio del Fondo Internacional para el Desarrollo Agrícola (FIDA), mejor conocido como el banco de los pobres, cuya sede central se encuentra en Roma, establece que las remesas desde el viejo continente ayudan al sustentamiento de más de 150 millones de personas.

Los emigrantes que residen en Europa transfirieron a sus países de origen en 2014 unos USD 109.400 millones, una fuente de ingresos notable para millones de personas que podría ser mejor aprovechada para el desarrollo, según un informe del Fondo Internacional para el Desarrollo Agrícola.

A combien s’élèvent les transferts des MRE en provenance d’Europe ? L’année dernière, ils étaient estimés à  6,3 milliards de dollars et représentaient  5,9% du PIB. Le Maroc est classé deuxième pays africain en termes de réception de fonds après le Nigeria (7,4 milliards de dollars).

Les travailleurs migrants qui vivent en Europe ont transféré en 2014 109,4 milliards de dollars dans leurs pays d’origine, a indiqué lundi dans un rapport le Fonds international pour le développement agricole (Fida).

Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
More numerous by the day, people continue to risk their lives to reach more promising lands. It is estimated that this year more than 30,000 could lose their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea alone. Many are escaping from wars and violence; many more are fleeing from poverty and misery.

Since Thursday June 11th, about 200 immigrants have been trying to cross the border between France and Italy, near the small town of Ventimiglia in Italy, but the French police have been preventing their entrance into the country. For the Italian Minister of the Interior, Angelino Alfano, this incident in Ventimiglia is “a slap in the face” from Europe. This weekend tensions increased between France and Italy concerning the issue of sharing responsibility for the increase in immigrants.

More than 400 policymakers, private-sector stakeholders and civil-society representatives observed the first International Day of Family Remittances today at the opening of the fifth Global Forum on Remittances and Development in Milan.

It is one of the hottest sectors in the global financial markets but rarely gets much attention: remittances.
Remittances are the small amounts of money that migrants in the rich world send to their families in the poor world – typically $200 (U.S.) a month. Until a few years ago, the remittances flow was either not measured or was measured poorly. That’s changing and the numbers associated with the market are astounding.