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28 March 2024

Expats sent Dh70.5bn home

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By Staff

Asians and other expatriate workers in the UAE siphoned out nearly Dh70.5 billion in 2012 to turn the country into one of the largest foreign currency source for the labour exporting countries, a senior UAE official has said.

The remittances transferred last year accounted for nearly a quarter of the total funds of around $80 billion (Dh294 billion) remitted home by foreign workers in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) last year, said Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Premier and Minister of Presidential Affairs.

Addressing a foreign labour conference in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, he said the UAE and the other GCC members host more than 15 million expatriate workers, adding that they constitute a major source of hard currency for their countries.

“These workers are contributing to the development of our countries and at the same time benefit from job opportunities here to support their families and countries.”

He said the GCC, which controls over a third of the world’s proven oil wealth, emerged as the world’s third largest group in terms of foreign remittances, which accounted for nearly 15 per cent of the total global remittances in 2012.

The UAE, the second largest Arab economy, had more than seven million expatriates at the end of 2012, accounting for over 80 per cent of the total population of 8.2 million.