The four million expatriate Indians in the six Gulf Cooperation Council states remit an incredible $5 billion annually, a study shows.
A survey by Dubai-based Gulf Research Centre said foreign workers send a total $27 billion annually, which is almost equal to 9 per cent of GCC states' GDP.
GRC analyst N Janardhan said India and Pakistan together received about $60 billion in remittances between 1993 and 2002.
There are 13 million expats in the GCC countries, a population which accounts for 70 per cent of the workforce.
The Asian workforce represents some 78 per cent of the total expatriate workforce in the United Arab Emirates.
Expats comprise 88 per cent of the workforce in the UAE compared with 83 per cent in Qatar, 81 per cent in Kuwait, 72 per cent in Saudi Arabia, 55 per cent in Bahrain and 54 per cent in Oman.
Saudi Arabia accounts for 63 per cent of all remittances, by some distance the highest share of any GCC country.