Acting Deputy Director of Economic Study and Monetary Policy Directorate with the Bank, Tefera Lemma said the amount of remittance the country gets annually has been increasing significantly.

The amount the country gets in remittance accounts for nearly 4.4 percent of its GDP, according to a report by the UN's International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

The report said Sub-Saharan Africa has over 30 million people in the Diaspora. Of all the world's regions, however, Africa's predominant migration is intra-regional, the report said.

The top five recipients of remittance are Morocco, Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia, the report stated.

Some 150 million migrants worldwide sent more than 300 billion USD to their families in various countries during 2006.

According to a study, in 2006 Asia was the top destination of remittances, receiving more than 114 billion followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (68 billion USD), Eastern Europe (51 billion USD) and Africa (39 billion USD) and the Near East (29 billion USD).

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