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Pardee-CFLP-Remittances-TF-Report

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Figure 3: Foreign Financial Inflows (Million US Dollars), 1991–2011Source: WDI database of the World Bank.Sources and Uses of <strong>Remittances</strong>The large-scale migration flows of semi-skilled and unskilled labor to the MiddleEast since the late 1970s has resulted in this region becoming a major source ofremittance flows to Sri Lanka since the 1980s. North America and Europe werethe two other main sources of remittances in the 1980s and early 1990s due tothe large-scale migration of asylum-seekers to these two regions. Records showthat 20.5 percent and 19.5 percent of recorded remittance inflows to Sri Lankacame from North America in 1987 and 1990, respectively, while the EuropeanUnion (EU) area accounted for 16.1 and 16.5 percent of remittance inflows inthese two years (Arunatilake et al. 2010).While the share of recorded remittances from North America has subsequentlydeclined, Europe has continued to remain a significant source of remittances,and is now the second major source after the Middle East. This shift towardsEurope partly reflects the recent increase in migration flows by skilled SriLankan male workers to Europe due to visa for jobs programs in Europe thatseek to address skilled labor shortages, and deliberate efforts by the Sri Lankangovernment to encourage skilled migration in areas such as health care (Arunatilakeet al. 2010). In 2011, 58.9 percent of Sri Lanka’s total recorded remittance64 A <strong>Pardee</strong> Center Task Force <strong>Report</strong> | October 2013

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