The United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia remain some of the most popular countries of immigration destination. According to the Migration Police Institute’s data for 2024, all four countries make it into the Top 10 ‘Destinations of International Migrants’ list. Even Indians considerably prefer these four nations over others.

Official Indian Government data released in March 2025 backed the widely acknowledged fact, detailing the population of overseas Indians across countries. While the USA has a total population of 54,09,062 overseas Indians (NRIs + Indian-origin), UK bears the 18,64,318 mark. Canada, on the other hand, has a population of 28,75,954 overseas Indians, with 9,76,000 of them in Australia.

Marco trend expert Ritesh Jain says Middle East should be the new migrant destination

Indian-origin macro trend expert and Pinetree, Nrizen founder Ritesh Jain, who is based in Canada himself, addressed the issue on social media this week, offering a relatively unexpected alternative to a Western world move. “I am firmly of the view that anybody looking to migrate to U.S./Uk//canada/Austalia should at least consider Middle East,” he began in a post on X.

ALSO READ

He then added a note about the foreign exchange: “Middle East countries used to recycle their FX surplus in U.S. economy but since last couple of years that surplus is now getting redirected to their own domestic economy.”

Jain further pushed that countries in the Middle East offered “better quality of life, healthcare” and were “safer for kids.” Noting that big wealth is gradually shifting away from the Western world to the Middle East, he went on, “The same immigrants/ refugees which are welcome in western world and putting strain on western society are not welcome in Middle East countries.”

What do the Middle East-US trade numbers say?

According to a summary of trade relations offered by the Office of the US Trade Representative website, America’s total goods trade with the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) were an estimated $141.7 billion last year.

US exports to MENA stood at $80.4 billion, jumping up by 5.8% as opposed to the previous year’s numbers, whereas imports from MENA amounted to $61.3 billion in 2024, down 1.6% from 2023. Overall, the US goods trade surplus with the Middle East totaled $19.1 billion in 2024, seeing a 39.8% rise from 2023’s figures.

ALSO READ

Netizens react

A trade investor mentor, Rohit Srivastava, jumped in on the conversation. “My wife used to fear going there due to gulf war memories but recent visits changed her mind,” he wrote. “However I recommend outside of Dubai because it has grown into any other Metro with its traffic and crowding issues. Tax efficiency is the best.”

Some others agreed with Jain’s advice, with one such user even noting, “Qualcomm opened it’s first middle east design center in Abu Dhabi recently. That’s a start.” However, not everyone was onboard, as someone wrote, “It’s a very small market.”

Another user dove even deeper. “Saw this 4 AM Trade in 2009-10, when the consensus trade for migration was Singapore, London, etc,” he wrote on X. “When I analysed all the options from all aspects, I was shocked how good the UAE was . But nobody agreed with me. Nobody. UAE is THE consensus Trade now.”