I have to agree with some of the views here that remittances in nepal are used as compensatory transfers rather than investment flows. Since those people in arab region are there to directly meet consumption needs in many cases, it is likely that we get more remittance per person from those countries. Yet, the remittances per person from north american region isn't that bad. This is mainly due to the fact that most people in this region use official transfers while those going to malaysia and others are still able to use informal channels. So, remittance issue is complex and cannot be evaluated in a few lines. I had written this paper about a couple of months ago. Have a read if you are interested in the paper entitled"Explaining the Remittance behavior in Nepal" http://dreamnepal.wordpress.com/2006/09/21/explaining-the-remittance-behavior-and-the-role-of-remittances-in-the-gdp-growth-in-nepal