Arab diaspora

Arab diaspora is a term that refers to descendants of the Arab emigrants who, voluntarily or as forcibly, migrated from their native lands to non-Arab countries, primarily in the Americas, Europe, Southeast Asia, and West Africa. Immigrants from Arab countries, such as Sudan, Syria and the Palestinian territories, also form significant diasporas in other Arab states. Arab expatriates contribute to the circulation of financial and human capital in the region and thus significantly promote regional development. In 2009 Arab countries received a total of US$35.1 billion in remittance in-flows and remittances sent to Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon from other Arab countries are 40 to 190 per cent higher than trade revenues between these and other Arab countries. Large numbers of Arabs migrated to West Africa, particularly Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Nigeria. Since the end of the civil war in 2002, Lebanese traders have become re-established in Sierra Leone. According to Saudi Aramco World, the largest concentration of Arabs outside the Arab World is in Brazil, which has 9 million Brazilians of Arab ancestry. Of these 9 million Arabs, 6 million are of Lebanese ancestry, making Brazil's population of Lebanese equivalent to that of Lebanon itself. However, these figures are contradicted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), which is the agency responsible for official collection of statistical information in Brazil. According to the 2010 Brazilian census conducted by IBGE, there were only 12,336 Lebanese nationals living in Brazil and other Arab nationalities were so small that they were not even listed. The Brazilian census does not ask about ancestry or family origin. There is a question about nationality and, according to the Brazilian law, any person born in Brazil is a Brazilian national by birth and right for any purpose, nationally or internationally - not an Arab. The last Brazilian census to ask about family origin was conducted in 1940.