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S. IRUDAYA RAJAN AND D. NARAYANA
In late 2008, responding to a request from the government of Kerala, the Centre for Development Studies prepared a report: “Global Financial Crisis and Kerala Economy: Impact and Mitigation Measures” (Centre for Development Studies 2008). The report predicted that remittances to Kerala were expected to increase from Rs. 30.122 in 2007 to Rs. 42.917 in 2008. Both the World Bank and the Centre reports predicted that the inflows of remittances to South Asia and Kerala were likely to continue, when the general expectation was that it would drastically fall. Our estimates based on a simple average of remittances for the available months from the country reports prepared by the teams suggest that all countries of South Asia are resilient to the crisis in terms of remittances (table 5.11). Our estimates put
TABLE 5.11 Inward Remittances to South Asian Countries, 2000–09 Year
Bangladesh
India
2000
1,968
12,890
2001
2,105
2002
2,858
2003 2004
Nepal
Pakistan
Sri Lanka
111
1,075
1,166
14,273
147
1,461
1,185
15,736
678
3,554
1,309
3,192
20,999
771
3,964
1,438
3,584
18,750
823
3,945
1,590
2005
4,314
22,125
1,212
4,280
1,991
2006
5,428
28,334
1,453
5,121
2,185
2007
6,562
37,217
1,734
5,998
2,527
2008
8,995
51,581
2,727
7,039
2,947
a
2009
10,431
47,000
3,010
8,619
2,892
2009b
10,525
53,227
2,812
8,856
3,308
2000–01
6.96
10.73
32.43
35.91
1.63
2001–02
35.77
10.25
361.22
143.26
10.46
2002–03
11.69
33.45
13.72
11.54
9.85
2003–04
12.28
−10.71
6.74
−0.48
10.57
2004–05
20.37
18.00
47.27
8.49
25.22
2005–06
25.82
28.06
19.88
19.65
9.74
2006–07
20.89
31.35
19.34
17.13
15.65
2007–08
37.08
38.60
57.27
17.36
16.62
2008–09a
15.96
−8.88
10.38
22.45
−1.87
2008–09b
17.01
3.19
3.12
25.81
12.25
Millions $
Percentage change
Source: World Bank and the country reports prepared by the research team for this project from five countries of South Asia. a. World Bank estimates. b. Authors’ estimates.