NEW DELHI - India, China and Mexico retain their positions as the top recipients of migrant remittances among developing countries, said the World Bank Tuesday.

As per official estimates, India has the largest diaspora of 25 million spread over 136 countries.

According to the Reserve Bank of India, private transfer receipts, comprising mainly remittances from Indians working overseas, increased to $46.4 billion (4 percent of GDP) during 2008-09 from $ 43.5 billion (3.7 per cent of GDP) in the previous year.

Private transfer receipts constituted 13.7 percent of current receipts in 2008-09 (13.8 percent in 2007-08).

“India, China and Mexico retain their position as the top recipients of migrant remittances among developing countries,” the World Bank said.

“Remittance flows to developing countries are expected to be $304 billion in 2009, down from an estimated $328 billion in 2008,” it said in a report on migration and remittances.

It also predicted that even as total inflows into poor, developing and developed economies will fall by 7.3 percent this year.

According to the World Bank, remittances are relatively resilient because, while new migration flows have declined, the number of migrants living overseas has been relatively unaffected by the crisis.

“There is a risk that rising unemployment will trigger further immigration restrictions in major destination countries,” said Hans Timmer, Director of the World Banks Development Prospects Group.

“Such restrictions would curb remittances more than forecast and would slow the global recovery in the same way as protectionism against trade would endanger a global upturn, Timmer said.