Jamaica currently ranks fifth highest for remittances in Latin America and Caribbean, fuelled by the second highest brain drain in the world, according to a just released World Bank study entitled Migration and Remittances Factbook 2011.

The factbook states that Jamaica so far for 2010 earned US$2 billion ($172 billion) in remittances fuelled by Jamaicans living abroad (emigrants) totalling nearly one million or one-third of the population.

Remittances represent the island’s top foreign exchange earner followed by tourism and alumina and the study showed that remittances in 2010 are already higher than the US$1.9 million for last year.

The factbook found that in Jamaica 85.1 per cent of its tertiary graduates emigrate representing the second highest in the world which ties with Grenada. The only country with higher rate worldwide is Guyana at 89 per cent.

Top destination countries for Jamaicans include the US, the UK, Canada, Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, Antigua & Barbuda, Germany, Netherlands Antilles, Australia and Barbados.

Jamaica’s brain drain rocketed in 2009 to a seven-year high which contributed to the reduction of the population’s growth rate to levels not seen since Hurricane Gilbert, 21 years ago according to the Economic and Social Survey 2009 (ESSJ) published this month by the Planning Institute of Jamaica. More Jamaicans left than returned last year, resulting in 20,000 net external movements which was 13.6 per cent more than in 2008 and also the highest since 2002.

Contrastingly, the net external movements in 2007 was the lowest in 14 years. Mark Croskery, CEO of Stocks and Securities Ltd (SSL), previously told the Observer that the 2007 decline in brain drain was likley the result of renewed hope due in part to the Jamaica Labour Party assuming office after 18 years in opposition. He, however, added that it would be transient unless Jamaica’s social and economic outlook improved.

Migration and Remittances Factbook 2011 was compiled by Dilip Ratha, Sanket Mohapatra, and Ani Silwal of the Development Prospects Group at the World Bank.

Jamaica’s remittances ranks as the 14th highest worldwide which represents 13.8 per cent of its GDP which is far less than Tajikistan–the world’s leader at 35 per cent of its GDP. Regional countries ranked higher than Jamaica are Honduras at 19 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP), Guyana at 17 per cent of its GDP, El Salvador at 16 per cent and Haiti at 15 per cent.

Overall the factbook found that there are more than 215 million international migrants in the world and that recorded

remittances received by developing countries, at some US$325 billion in 2010 far exceed the volume of official aid flows and constitute more than 10 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in many developing countries.