Nigeria tops Africa’s diaspora remittances list – Emefiele
Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele has disclosed that Nigeria is on top of Africa countries and ranked five globally in the global fund remittances by migrants which World Bank’s estimate put at $613 billion in 2017.
Speaking in Abuja at the opening of the workshop on remittances household survey, Emefiele said out of about US$613 billion global remittances recorded in 2017, US$72 billion was received by African countries.
Represented by Dr. Mohammed Tumala, the bank’s Director of statistics department, Emefiele regretted that, despite inflow of huge remittance to African countries by migrants, lack of adequate data makes capturing of remittances a difficult task .
” Remittances inflows contribute substantially to foreign exchange earnings and household finances in most developing economies. Money sent home by migrant workers is among the major financial inflows to developing countries and in some cases it exceeds international aids and grants”.
” According to the World Bank, global remittances have risen gradually over the years to about $613 billion in 2017, of which $ 72 billion was received by African countries. As a recipient country, Nigeria tops African countries and is also ranked among the top five globally”, said the governor.
He described the workshop as timely, saying it seeks to contribute to the improvement in the quality of remittances data, and consequently policy decisions that are based on them.
He recalled steps taken by Nigeria over the years to attract remittances inflow and its economic contributions to the development of the country .
Such steps identified by CBN governor included, floating of $300 million diaspora bond, introduction of electronic certificate of capital importation to Nigerians in the diaspora;
the appointment of a Special Adviser to the President on foreign affairs and diaspora matters and Nigeria becoming a member of the international association of money transfer network.
Emefiele said it was high time compilers of the remittances inflow adopt more effective method of computing remittance household survey data.
“Compilers of remittances statistics in the country use both banking records as well as staff estimates of informal inflows. This methodology is not without limitations as we think that a large chunk of migrants’ remittances pass through informal channels and are, thus unrecorded.
Nigeria is yet to conduct a household based remittances survey to provide scientific estimates of these informal flows. In addition, data from banking records also come with some discrepancies due to classification challenges on the part of the reporting institutions”, noted CBN governor.
In a welcome address by Dr. Emmanuel Olowofeso, Deputy Director in statistics department of CBN, he said the bank with the support of African Institute for Remittance in conjunction with National Bureau of Statistics and National Population Commission are formalizing structures necessary for the conduct of a Remittances Household survey being planned for first quarter of 2019.
