Posted on 02/16/2007 3:17:45 AM PST by Jedi Master Pikachu
Money sent home by Filipinos working overseas last year totalled a record $12.8bn (£6.5bn), the Philippines' central bank has said. The remittances - a 20% rise on 2005 - account for about 10% of the country's economy, the bank added.
Most of the eight million overseas workers are in the US or Middle East. According to the World Bank, the Philippines is the fifth-largest recipient of foreign remittances behind India, China, Mexico and France. It has forecast that Filipinos will send home about $14.1bn this year. Their remittances play an increasingly significant role in boosting domestic consumption. In December 2006 alone, $1.3bn was sent back to the Philippines, the highest amount sent in a single month of the year.
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France, with a population of roughly 60 million and a developed country, receives more remittance money than the Philippines?
P.S. The Philippines has roughly 80 million people and is a developing country, fyi.
Probably translates into about $6 bn taken out of the American economy. Add Mexicans, Indians, Chinese, etc. and some real dollars add up and leave.
You are absolutely right - it is no way to build an economy.
...and they are treated like slaves here in the Middle East. I have worked here over two years now, and this is nothing more than indentured servitude. Their passports are confiscated, they start off in debt, and they have to pay a finders fee anywhere from US$200 to US$1000 in addition to getting their passport etc.
The most hypocritical part is that when trained pilots started leaving the PI for better jobs, Lucio Tan, evil mogul extraordinaire, tried to get a law passed prohibiting pilots from taking jobs with overseas airlines. We aren't talking contractual obligations in exchange for training (which is a lie, in the PI they have to pay to learn to fly themselves), but a law prohibiting them from seeking a job overseas.
OK, so, if you are unskilled, you can go be a slave in Jeddah or Riyadh because they need the money, but if you are skilled, you can't go because it will drive up labor costs for Lucio Tan and Philippine Airlines.
I think the ConCon and ConAss ideas, or any plan to move to a parliamentary style of government, are horrible, but they also are not well-severed by the Senate made up almost exclusively of the sons, daughters, neices, and nephews of former Senators.
They can strike in the street, overturn presidents peaceably, but they can't seem to free themselves from these self-centered hypocritical super-rich socialists that steal from the taxpayers while espousing a phony populist agenda.
The whole thing is very depressing...almost like seeing the Kennedys still in public office.
Just for comparison's sake:
Total remittances worldwide -estimated 230 billion
US GDP for 2006 -estimated 13 trillion
As for this not being the right way to develop a country, well, you may have a point there...but it doesn't necessarily mean so.
For instance, what if private enterprise is not curtailed in the receiving country, and this money feeds the spurting of start-up firms? For eg., like in India.
India used to go to the extreme on self-reliance, and it was after it started freeing up its market that the economy started to grow a lot.
So, to basically sum up the opinion, remittances can be helpful, but those countries should not be reliant on them.
Thanks. That translates into a little over 2% of our GDP.
oooops ... a little 'under' 2% of GDP.
The 230billion number is from all developing countries, figure the US accounts for about 70% of that and it works out to about 1.25% of GDP.
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