Monday 30 March 2009

BANGLADESH: Fears for social stability as migrant workers return

DHAKA, 26 March 2009 (IRIN) - Abdul Monsur has good reason to worry. After losing his job as a pipe welder in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) he was deported to Bangladesh.

[See also: BANGLADESH: Global financial crunch set to cut remittances]

“I sold my land and borrowed almost 1.75 lakh taka (US$2,550) from my relatives to get this job,” the father-of-four, who paid more than $3,500 to a local job recruiter six months earlier to secure the job, told IRIN.

“I still haven’t been able to pay off the debt,” he said.

Such stories are not uncommon. Layoffs and forced repatriation of Bangladeshi workers from the Middle East and Malaysia (the two primary destinations for Bangladeshi workers) are increasing at an alarming rate. Read more

IFAD: Financing facility for remittances

The International Fund for Agricultural Development, a specialized agency of the United Nations, in partnership with the European Commission; the Inter-American Development Bank (Multilateral Investment Fund); the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor; the Government of Luxembourg; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Spain; and the United Nations Capital Development Fund, is pleased to announce the Financing Facility for Remittances (FFR) 2009 call for proposals on:

Promoting innovative remittance systems and investment channels for migrants

Read more

Immigrants to US Struggle to Support Families Back Home

By Gabe Joselow
Washington
26 March 2009


Latino immigrants working in a Los Angeles grocery store (file photo)
Latino immigrants working in a Los Angeles grocery store (file photo)
A shopping mall parking lot is a gathering place for migrants looking for work. On a cold morning in March, about 50 men stand in near silence, hoping to attract an employer in need of cheap day labor.

Andres Lopez, from Guatemala, says there has been hardly any work for the past year. He blames the recession."Its affected all of the workers in this area," he says, "I think we all know that we came here to find work but right now its very hard.
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Wednesday 25 March 2009

$32 billion less remittances for developing countries, but.....

Speaking at a conference on the impact of the global economic crisis on remittances (organized by COS Utrecht, AfroEuro Foundation, OxfamNovib and the ICMPD), Dr Manuel Orozco, of the Inter American Dialogue (Georgetown university) explained that annual remittances from the EU and the US to developing countries will decline by $32 billion. Participants at the 19 March conference heard that the crisis may reduce remittances. They also heard that it has made many re-examine how they can make more effective use of the money transferred. Ways to reduce transfer costs, ensure payments are sensibly used and raising financial literacy were all discussed.
Read more

India tops remittances in 2008

WASHINGTON: With migrant workers facing job losses, anti-migrant sentiment and even violence in the deepening global financial crisis, World Bank
researchers predict remittances will fall to $290 billion in 2009, from last year's high of $305 billion.

Remittances flowing to developing countries from Russia, South Africa, Malaysia and India are "especially vulnerable to the rolling economic crisis", says the bank's revised Migration and Development Brief.

With a total of $45 billion, India was the top recipient of remittances in 2008. China came next with $34 billion followed by Mexico ($26 billion), Philippines ($18 billion) and Poland ($11 billion). Read more

Nexxo Financial Transforms Traditional Remittance Company With Innovative Self-Serve Technology

Los Angeles branches allow consumers the ease of sending money abroad via automated Nexxo Cajeros

SAN BRUNO, Calif., March 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Nexxo Financial Corporation, the leader in self-serve remittance for the U.S. Hispanic market, announces the completed transformation of Aval Envios, a money transfer company in Los Angeles, to a self-serve model with installation of its patent-pending technology and Nexxo Cajeros inside the branches. Read more

PHILIPPINES: Global OFW deployment, dollar remittances grow despite global crisis

he Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) today confirmed that both the global deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and their dollar remittances to the country's economy have continued to increase notwithstanding the global financial crisis (GFC).

Labor and Employment Secretary Marianito D. Roque cited the latest report of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas that despite the global financial slowdown, OFW remittances from more than 190 host countries worldwide reached more than US$1.265 billion in January 2009, representing a positive 0.1 percent growth from the same period in 2008.

Roque had cited the earlier confirmation made by the DOLE's Philippine Overseas Employment Administration that the total global deployment of documented OFWs reached a robust growth to 165,737 in January this year, up worldwide by 25.3 percent, from 132,285 in the same period last year. Read more

Bangladesh ranked among top 10 recipients of remittance in 2008

A Z M Anas

Bangladesh retained its position among the world's top 10 recipients of remittances last year, according to the World Bank, as record overseas jobs helped keep the flow intact.

The flow of remittances the country hauled in reached US$8.9 billion in 2008 after more than 800,000 Bangladeshis entered the international job market, with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) becoming the biggest employer.

In 2007 also, the country was on the list of top 10 recipients.

In its Outlook for Remittance Flows (2008-2010), the Washington-based lender said the country beat even Pakistan in terms of receipt of workers' money during 2008. Pakistan received $7.1 billion in the same period.

Read more

The Impact of Global Financial Crisis on Microfinance

CGAP has just released a new report on The Global Financial Crisis and Its Impact on Microfinance, and the picture is looking mixed for microfinance over the next few years. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) that rely on commercial funding are facing a refinancing threat, exacerbated by possible currency mismatches.

However, international donors look likely to fill a large part of the gap if the issue is one of liquidity. I think the more difficult question is what to do about MFIs that face an insolvency problem, a possibility in the light of trends in remittance flows.

Read more

Remittances and microfinance

CGAP has just released a new report on The Global Financial Crisis and Its Impact on Microfinance, and the picture is looking mixed for microfinance over the next few years. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) that rely on commercial funding are facing a refinancing threat, exacerbated by possible currency mismatches.

However, international donors look likely to fill a large part of the gap if the issue is one of liquidity. I think the more difficult question is what to do about MFIs that face an insolvency problem, a possibility in the light of trends in remittance flows.

Read more

Economic downturn weighs on Filipino migrant laborers

By Karen Lema

MANILA (Reuters) - Like millions of Filipinos, Alma Ang left her homeland to work abroad for a salary far higher than she could have ever earned at home.

Now, as the global financial crisis bites, Filipino migrant workers face the prospect of losing their jobs abroad and returning home unemployed and often in debt.

In the case of Ang, after paying a recruitment agency 120,000 pesos (about $2,500) for a job at an electronics factory in Taiwan, she was retrenched within a year and is back in the Philippines without any work at all. Read more

Uganda Business News: BOU conducts survey on work remittances to Uganda

The Bank of Uganda is currently currying out a second household survey on workers remittances to Uganda.

BOU says that the house survey is aimed at generating information on money and other items in kind received from Ugandans living and working from broad who are popularly known as ‘ Kyeeyo’

BOU’s Communications Director, Juma Walusimbi says that survey information collected will be shared between BOU, national policy makers and planners to improve the environment for sending and receiving money as well as establishing licensed remittance services providers.

Wsalusimbi says that this is a second survey after one was done in 2007 by the Bank of Uganda under foreign exchange Act of 2004 and Uganda Bureau of Statistic’s Act of 1998.

Walusimbi ays that competent field staffs collects information on money received by house holds from relatives living in abroad with in a prescribed period and that the targeted are selected 4,080 house holds located in urban parts of Uganda.

He says that the information will at the same time be used to estimate all the amount received with in that given financial year plus the value of item received
Source

Remittances to Latin American Falling

workers are able to send back to their South American home countries is falling.

WASHINGTON – The sending of remittances to Latin America this year will fall for the first time since the Inter-American Development Bank began measuring the money flows in 2000, the IDB said on Monday.

The IDB reported on Monday that remittances to the region reached $69.2 billion in 2008, an increase of less than 1 percent from 2007. Read more

JAMAICA: Remittances fell 18.3 per cent in Feb

..JA among hardest hit in region by falling inflows

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Remittance inflows fell by US$30 million ($2.66 billion), or 18.3 per cent during the month of February 2009 when compared to the corresponding month last year. Inflows totalled US$133 million ($11.79 billion) during the review month.

The 18.3 per cent decline in February followed a 10 per cent decline during the previous month placing the total decline for 2009 thus far at 14.2 per cent, or US$44 million ($3.92 billion). Read more

Remittances expected to fall by $15B

By David Ariosto
CNN
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The money that foreign workers send home will shrink by $15 billion this year, as the global economy limps along, the World Bank projects.

Such remittances, or money transfers, will fall from last year's high of $305 billion to $290 billion in 2009, the World Bank said in a report released this week.

Money transfers are among the largest sources of external financing in developing countries, often used to buy basic necessities in areas with rampant poverty.

"Because they flow directly from people to people, remittances become especially important for poor people," said Dilip Ratha, an economist at the World Bank and lead author of the report. "Many people use remittances as their only lifeline."
Read more

Tuesday 24 March 2009

Bid to smooth the economic cycles

ngela Heng , HONG KONG | Tue, 03/24/2009 10:08 AM | Opinion

Among the most vulnerable in the current recession are the poor, and especially the poor in developing countries. As people in the developed world worry, quite rightly, about job security, how to get a loan for a new car or house and paying the bills every month, millions of people in poorer countries risk sliding even further into extreme poverty.

For them, even basics such as getting enough food and having a simple shelter from the elements is likely to be out of reach. It is therefore hardly surprising that the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon warned again recently that immediate action is needed to protect people, jobs, shelter and livelihoods in developing countries and called for a redoubling of commitments to meeting the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. Read more

Remittances to Eastern Europe to slow dramatically

The remittance income from Mexican and Central American immigrants working in the United States back to their home nations is not the only huge remittance flow in the world. One of significant import is in Europe, where millions of indivuals from the former Eastern Bloc now work in Western Europe. However, as in the U.S. - Mexican connection, these remittances will be nosediving.

Below is an analysis from Morgan Stanley (with my bolding):

The Central European economies (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania) are heavily influenced by developments in their richer western neighbors. Developed Europe accounts for around 70% of all CE exports; its banks dominate lending, with a market share of around 80% on average; and FDI inflows from western European companies have proved to be a significant engine of growth over recent years. Read more

The Poorest Nations Need Help in This Crisis

The world's worst economic crisis in decades is still unfolding, but one thing is already clear. Those who thought the impact of the crisis would remain confined to the rich countries where it originated were completely wrong. The unprecedented speed of the contagion's spread has taken developing countries by surprise, and they are feeling extremely vulnerable.

Even some of the erstwhile fast-growing countries like Brazil, China and India now face severe economic difficulties, with ominous social consequences. In China, an official agency has raised alarm that 20 million jobless rural migrants -- joined by perhaps seven million new entrants to the itinerant work force -- would soon start their long march to the coastal cities for jobs. In India, food retailers and warehouses have been vandalized after a lack of credit left them unable to pay security agencies and staff.

The countries set to suffer most from the meltdown are the migrant-sending poor nations whose economies are heavily dependent on migrants' remittances. Few of them are able to launch robust stimulus plans of their own due to both financial and institutional constraints. In the absence of adequate social safety nets, their poorest people will be the hardest hit. Read more

W.Bank sees fall in 2009 remittances to poor nations

MANILA (Reuters) - Remittance flows to developing countries are likely to fall 5 to 8 percent this year, a reversal from an estimated growth of 8.8 percent in 2008, based on the latest remittance outlook by a technical group of the World Bank.

The latest outlook, released on Monday, was bleaker than the previous forecast of 0.9 to 5.7 percent decline in remittance flows made by the same technical group in November. Read more

Sunday 15 March 2009

Philippines: BPI sees remittances growing

THE AYALAS’ BANK OF THE PHILIPPINE Islands (BPI), the country’s biggest banking channel for overseas Filipino remittances, has shrugged off some economists’ projection of a sharp decline in the remittances inflows this year.

Despite the lingering global financial turmoil that resulted in a major global downturn, the Philippines can still attain a modest growth in remittances or, at the worst case, match the inflows last year, BPI president Aurelio Montinola III told reporters. Read more

Under the Radar, Migrants From Central Asia, Georgia Head To U.S.

March 15, 2009
By Richard Solash

NEW YORK -- In a cramped and dimly lit apartment in one of New York City’s predominantly Russian neighborhoods, three Kyrgyz women share a room. Each has traveled more than a fourth of the distance around the globe to get here, and their goal is clear: make money, use a little of it to get by, and send most of it back home.

These women are some of the nearly 50 illegal workers from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Georgia that Saltanat Liebert has studied for the past three years.

"The fairly large and growing group of migrants are migrants who arrive [in the United States] through irregular channels, meaning that they either come on tourist visas and overstay, or come through different channels," Liebert, an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, says.
Read more

Saturday 7 March 2009

Bangladesh's Remittance Flow Records Over 27 Percent Growth

Dhaka, Bangladesh (AHN) - Bangladesh expatriates sent home a record $6.148 billion in remittances during the first eight months of the current fiscal year, marking a 27.01 percent growth over the same period of the last fiscal year.

"The flow of remittances is still at a satisfactory level," a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country's central bank, told AHN Media in Dhaka on Tuesday.

The BB official also said that the total amount of remittances dropped slightly in February over that of the previous month due mainly to fewer working days.

Read more

SRI LANKA: Remittances and impact on development and poverty reduction

Sri Lanka is a comparatively small open market economy with a large expatriate labour force that sends substantial remittances to the country. In 2007, remittances were around 11% of GDP.

As in many other developing nations, Sri Lanka’s official records show that remittances have grown dramatically over the past decade. Nevertheless, the role remittances plays in development as well as the growth effect of this unconditional migrant assistance is under-researched and needs more development policy-oriented attention. In the meantime, the protracted civil war has elevated the importance of this injection of foreign exchange into the national economy. Read more

The End of the Immigration Boom?

The relatively free movement of labor across borders for the last few decades has generally had a positive impact on many countries because of the large remittances sent home by expatriates. In India, Kerala has been the biggest beneficiary, its relative prosperity sustained by its sons and daughters toiling away in West Asia or in hospitals around the world. But it looks like the global recession is beginning to seriously hurt international migration, and many migrants are forced to go home again.

Immigration is a sensitive issue, and passions run high, often bringing out the worst in people: and racism surely is a part of it. An Indian immigrant named Navtej Singh Sidhu was set on fire while sleeping on a park bench in Italy recently. Racist violence against Roma (or Gypsies) is increasing -- although they have lived in Europe for centuries, they are discriminated against as outsiders and non-whites. Russian skinheads were convicted of killing 20 migrants – mostly non-whites.
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Life without remittances in Ghana

HO, Ghana — The sidewalk in front of Ghana Commercial Bank is not where Godwin “Romeo” Dagadu expected to find himself.

He needs a loan to help him stay in school. He wants to be a banker some day. His mother is here, to co-sign the application.

Gone are the days when his father, who moved to the United States, would wire a few hundred dollars every once in a while, which he put toward school fees.

His father lost his factory job in Minnesota and moved to South Africa, where as a teacher he’s not earning enough to send money home.

Even in this tiny city 95 miles northeast of Accra, it’s hard to find shelter from the global financial crisis. Read more

Remittances El Salvador Fall 8.4 Percent

SAN SALVADOR – Remittances from Salvadorans living and working abroad, most of them in the United States, fell by 8.4 percent during January compared with the same month in 2008, El Salvador’s central bank said Wednesday.

According to an item posted on the bank’s Web site, in January remittances dropped to $252.4 million.

So far, neither the government nor the central bank has commented on the reasons for the decline, but a similar situation occurred during four months of last year and was ascribed to the economic crisis in the United States, from where it is estimated that 90 percent of the remittances flow.

In 2008, remittances reached a total of $3.79 billion, 2.5 percent more than in 2007.

The flow of remittances in recent years has become a pillar of the Salvadoran economy, amounting to 17 percent of the gross domestic product.

Remittances grew by 11.1 percent in 2005, 17.2 percent in 2006 and 6.5 percent in 2007. EFE

Source

SUDAN: Mi-Pay, Isys launch mobile remittances service in Sudan

UK-based provider of mobile payments services Mi-Pay has partnered with Kuwait-based provider of services for MNOs and financial institutions Isys to launch a mobile money transfer service in Sudan.

Called Saraf-Mobile, the new platform delivers payments capabilities to companies and individuals using their mobile phones. The service allows users to send money to family and friends as well as make payments for various services. Sudan is the first phase in a planned roll-out which will cover 22 countries from the Middle East and North Africa.

Under the terms of the agreement, Mi-Pay is due to supply the open-system technical infrastructure including transaction clearance and settlement interface and also manage the regulatory framework, among others. Isys will commercialise Mi-Pay services and will provide local management and first line technical support as well as deal with local regulatory approvals. Isys currently has branch offices in Kuwait, UAE, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan and Nigeria. The deal comes soon after Mi-Pay recently opened its office in Dubai in a move to expand on the Middle East market.

Source

NEPAL: Remittance soars by 65.3 pc: NRB

KATHMANDU, March 5 - In the first six months of the current fiscal year, the overall balance of payment recorded a significant surplus of Rs. 28.5 billion compared to a deficit of Rs 2.0 billion in the corresponding period of the previous year, Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) said Wednesday releasing the periodic macroeconomic situation based on the first six months of the current fiscal year.

This increase was primarily attributed to the surge in net transfers by 59.9 percent in the first half of the fiscal year ending in mid-January. Under transfers, workers' remittances soared by 65.3 percent in the first six months of compared to the growth of 18.2 percent in the corresponding period of the previous year, said the bank.
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UGANDA: Business down as remittances fall

By Titus Kakembo and Agencies
Contrary to earlier perceptions that Uganda was cushioned from the effects of the global crunch, those depending on remittances from abroad are already feeling the squeeze.

The World Bank says remittances from the Gulf Arab region, the lifeblood for millions in the developing world, could decline by 9% in nominal dollar terms this year, compared with a rise of 38% last year. Global remittance flows stood at $283b last year, up 7% from the year before.

In the last budget, remittances from Ugandans working abroad were estimated at $1,392m in the financial year 2007/08 up from $646m in the financial year 2006/07.
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MEXICO: The Impact of the Economic Recession on Migration Patterns from Mexico

- As migration from, and remittances to, Mexico have decreased as a result of the current recession, the Mexican economy ominously worsens
- Migration, remittances, and the national economy should be considered as integral components in the debate over whether Mexico deserves to be classified as a “failed state,” and what should be United States policy

The Mexican economy and many of its national institutional structures may be on the brink of collapse. While drug war violence has dominated the recent news about the possible irreversible status as a society beyond remediation, the topic of immigration has been either marginalized or used to further promote fears that the conflict may spread to the United States. Drugs, national security, and economic recession have replaced immigration reform on the United States’ policy agenda. However, the current financial crisis, and its impact south of the border, is intricately linked to matters of immigration, security, and Mexico’s very cohesion.

BANGLADESH: Clouds on remittance horizon

Remittances have long been a principal element of the Bangladesh economy, but in the last two years, especially, with the sky-rocketing in the price of essentials due to global commodity price rise, it has been the remittances sent back by overseas Bangladeshis that have kept the economy afloat and have made the difference for countless struggling families, especially rural ones.

It is therefore critical that the government focus on remittance earnings as a bulwark of the economy, and also have in place contingency measures in case there is a significant downturn in remittance earnings, as statistics and analysts indicate may well be the case in the near future. Read More

The Impact of Declining Home Remittances

The IMF's Middle East and Central Asia Department head, Masood Ahmed, believes the billions of dollars in aid pledged to Georgia after the August war with Russia and the series of measures taken by the Government will well position Tbilisi to weather the world financial meltdown.


On their part, the Government and several prominent luminaries argue that the Georgian economy, being not deeply integrated with the world economy, will suffer the impact of the world economic contraction much less severely than most other national economies. However, it suffices to mention a few economic indicators which contradict this optimistic analysis: investments, which were the main driving force of recent double-digit growth, have almost stopped, inflation has generally increased, and unemployment is steadily on the rise.

The most severe blow to the Georgian population will come from the serious decline of remittances from abroad in 2009. This decrease in remittances, which is inevitable, will substantially reduce the local economic activity in many sectors in 2009 and during the next few years.

Read more