• Though India lags behind Mexico in number of emigrants (those migrating abroad), but it remains the largest recipient of remittances, with the figure rising from $49.6 billion in 2009 to $55 billion in 2010.
   
• India and China (with $51 billion in remittances), account for almost a quarter of the worldwide remittance flows of $440 billion in 2010, the report estimated.
   
• While the developing countries receive the bulk ($325 billion) of total remittances, high-income OECD countries account for just $107 billion of the global remittance flow.
   
• Middle-income countries including China, Russia, Mexico, India, Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey receive most of it ($301 billion), while low-income countries including Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Nepal, Uganda and Cambodia receive just $24 billion. Among these Bangladesh alone receives over $11 billion.
   
• It is believed that the true size of remittances, including unrecorded money transfers through informal channels, is considerably larger than the official figures.
   
• The recorded remittances in 2009 were nearly three times the amount of official foreign aid and equal to FDI flows to developing countries.
   
• The US recorded the largest outflow of remittances in 2009 -- $48 billion -- followed by Saudi Arabia with an outflow of $26 billion and Switzerland and Russia accounting for less than $20 billion of outflows each.
   
• Every year 11.4 million Indians migrate abroad, but during the same period 5.4 million come into the country, making India No. 10 in the list of nations attracting the most immigrants -- and No. 2 in Asia, behind Saudi Arabia.
   
• India is among the most important destination for Asian migrants, second only to the US. But most of these come from Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan.
   
• Approximately 37% of Asian migrants move to OECD countries, 43% migrate within the region and the rest migrate to other countries outside the region.
  The World Migration Report 2010, brought out by the International Organization for Migration, says that about 57% of all migrants live in high income countries, up from 43% in 1990.
   
• Migrants now make up 10% of the population of high-income regions, up from 7.2% in 1990.
   
• The US remains the top migrant destination country in the world, with 42.8 million migrants in 2010 compared to 34.8 million in 2000. However, just over 2.2 million Americans live outside the US, less than 1% of the country's population.
   
• For Asia too, the US was the main destination with 7.9 million Asian emigrants going to that country. Asians are the second-largest group of migrants in the US, next to Mexicans, with over 10 million people a 27% share of the total migrant population -- made up of nearly 2 million Chinese, 1.7 million Filipinos and 1.6 million Indians.
   
• Many of the big destination countries are also origin countries like Germany, the UK, Ukraine, Russia and India.
   
• The top immigration countries relative to population are Qatar where migrants make up 87% of the population, Monaco (72%), the United Arab Emirates (70%), Kuwait (69%) and Andorra (64%).
   
• The total number of international migrants or people living outside their country of birth in 2010 to be 215 million persons, or 3% of the world's population, only a marginal increase over the levels recorded in 2005.

These facts have been compiled by the World Bank's just-released Migration and Remittances Factbook 2011.