The amount of money that expatriate workers in the Middle East transfer home is likely to bounce back in 2011 after remittances saw a decline in the second quarter of the year.

“Although remittance flows from the region should improve next year they were unlikely to return just yet to the peaks of the economic boom,” Christina Gold, the chief executive and president of Western Union, the global financial services company, was quoted as saying in a report in The National.

Transfer of funds to developing countries is expected to rise by 6.2 per cent this year before increasing again next year to reach a record high of at least $350 billion globally, the report said.

“From our perspective, we see this as a challenging region in 2010 but we see opportunities coming into next year and see growth rebounding in the region,” Gold said, according to the report.