More than 66% NRIs reside in the Gulf, highest number of PIOs reside in the US
As of March 2022, more than 66 per cent (66.27 per cent) of the 1.34 crore non-resident Indians (NRIs) reside in the Persian Gulf countries of UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain, the External Affairs Ministry has said in an RTI reply.
These 1.34 crore NRIs live in 210 countries, and 88.8 lakh of them live in above-mentioned six Gulf nations.
By far, the highest number of overseas Indians reside in the United Arab Emirates (34.1 lakh), followed by Saudi Arabia (25.9 lakh). Therefore, a quarter (25.44 per cent) of the world’s NRIs live in the UAE.
By comparison, according to the RTI reply, only 12.8 lakh NRIs live in the US, 3.5 lakh in the UK, 2.4 lakh in Australia, 2.2 lakh in Malaysia and 1.7 lakh in Canada.
However, USA has the highest number of persons of Indian origin (PIOs), numbering 31 lakh, followed by Malaysia (27.6 lakh), Myanmar (20 lakh), Sri Lanka (16 lakh) and Canada (15.1 lakh).
An NRI is an Indian citizen who ordinarily resides outside India and holds an Indian passport. A PIO, on the other hand, is a person who, or any of whose ancestors, was an Indian national and who presently holds another country’s citizenship or nationality (i.e., foreign passport-holder).
