15m expats in GCC countries send home $80b in remittance every year

[Al Bhatti]

May 14, 2013

15m expats in GCC countries send home $80b in remittance every year

Foreign workers contribute to development in host, home countries

International migration,increasingly being perceived as a development tool and a main source of capital for developing countries, should be put at the centre of the global development agenda and mainstream population policy, heard an international conference on Labour Mobility in Abu Dhabi yesterday (Tuesday).

The UAE and other GCC member countries, host of more than 15 million foreign workers, sending home more than $80 billion (Dh294 billion) in remittance every year, support international efforts to develop relationship between migration and development and improve policies related to labour mobility across borders, Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahayn, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs told the international conference “Labour Mobility – Enabler for Sustainable Development.

“The UAE contributes 24 per cent of the financial flows arising from Gulf migration or more than $19 billion (Dh70billion),” said Shaikh Mansour in a speech read out by Saqr Gobash Saeed Gobash, Minister of Labour.

Shaikh Mansour recognised foreign workers’ contribution to the development of the host countries and said they too contributed to development back home.

Shaikh Mansour said despite the global financial crisis, the UAE created nearly a million jobs every year between 2009 and 2012, which contributed to mitigating unemployment in the region.

“The UAE is keen to provide foreign workers with decent work and living conditions and exerts every effort to address any challenges they face, including firm strategies to protect their rights under the supervision of the Labour Ministry,” Shaikh Mansour said.

The GCC is the third largest hub of international migration, according to a paper presented to the conference by Zhra Babar, of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar.

The conference focuses, among other themes, on how to manage migration flows in a more orderly way, one that maximises the benefits and minimises the costs to both sending and receiving countries as well as to the migrants themselves.

Dr Farrukh Iqbal, Director, GCC Countries, Middle East and North Africa Region, World Bank, told the conference held at the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research, nearly one billion of the world’s 7 billion people — or one in every seven person — is a migrant. Of these, an overwhelming number, about 700 million, are internal migrants and only 200 million are those who have changed their country of residence.

He estimated that these migrants’ remittances to their home countries were $400 billion (about Dh1.5 trillion), of which 20 per cent are sent from the GCC countries.

15m expats in GCC countries send home $80b in remittance every year | GulfNews.com

 

[Al Bhatti]

May 15, 2013

'UAE alone remits nearly $12bn to the rest of the world', labour mobility conference told

Migrant workers in Arabian Gulf countries generate up to US$80 billion of remittances each year.

And workers in GCC countries send about $30bn (Dh110.19bn) to India alone, which is more than the US’s total foreign aid budget, says Michael Clemens, a senior fellow and research manager from the Centre for Global Development in Washington.

At the labour mobility conference at the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research yesterday, Dr Farrukh Iqbal, director for the GCC and Mena at the World Bank, said: “The GCC countries are major stakeholders in development and migration and there are many migrant workers in the GCC.”

Mr Clemens will talk today about “the effects of UAE construction jobs on Indians and their families; evidence from pooled international microdata and a natural experiment” at the conference.

“Here in the GCC, the workers send more money to India than the US sends foreign aid to the world, and who studies the effects on families of workers back home in India?” he asked.

“Children of these workers get better education and medical care back home. These families in India are very happy. These workers earn five times more than a guy earns in India and it’s very difficult to even double your income in India.”

Mr Clemens said “the UAE alone remits nearly $12bn to the rest of the world”.

“Nobody in the Gulf studies this. They study other aspects, like protecting rights of workers. I think this is the huge contribution to global development,” he said.

Mohamed Abdul Razack, labour minister of Mauritius, talked of his country’s “labour mismatch”.

“Mauritius is both a labour exporter and importer,” Mr Abdul Razack said. “The country suffers from a labour mismatch in that our education system does not always produce school-leavers with the skills required for the jobs available.”

To promote a realistic strategy of sustainable development and labour mobility in Mauritius “we concentrated on two key elements: firstly, we have heavily invested in training, and we benefit from the fact that our people are conversant in English and French, as well as other languages.

“Secondly, we have enforced high labour standards and foreign companies are confident that, from both a legal and administrative perspective, workers are treated correctly and are aware of their own responsibilities.”

Policymakers, ministers, scholars and experts from labour-sending and labour-receiving countries gathered for the two-day conference yesterday to share expertise and show commitment to increasing cooperation.

Across the world there are 900 million migrants, of which 200 million are international migrants and 700 million are internal migrants. This means one in every seven people on this Earth is a migrant, Dr Iqbal said.

“In addition, $400bn is the estimated total remittances in the world today. This number is higher than all aid provided, all foreign investment, indeed all other capital flows,” he emphasised.

A World Bank report shows remittance to the developing world last year totalled US$406 billion (Dh1.49 trillion), an increase of 6.5 per cent on the previous year.

According to the World Bank, the agenda for development economics 30 years ago was predicated on the acceptance of the view that labour mobility was simply a matter of moving from low productivity to high productivity but this is quite a primitive view now.

Migration is now seen as perhaps the most powerful driver of growth.

'UAE alone remits nearly $12bn to the rest of the world', labour mobility conference told - The National

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May 15, 2013

The UAE has provided almost one million jobs a year between 2009 and last year despite the global economic crisis, says the Minister of Labour, Saqr Ghobash.

"The UAE, in spite of the global financial crisis, has managed to provide one million jobs annually, which has significantly reduced the unemployment numbers in the region," Mr Ghobash said.

He said the relationship between migration and development in the UAE was in line with the United Nations' labour policy for 2015.

"The Gulf Cooperation Council is the third-largest regional organisation worldwide in terms of remittances," Mr Ghobash said.

He said the conference would contribute greatly to the development of new policies for labour mobility.

The Bahraini labour minister, Jameel Humaidan, said labour issues in the region had political, economic, cultural and social factors.

"We have to set strong principles between receiving and labour exporting countries to establish cooperation that is beneficial to both sides," Mr Humaidan said.

He said with 1.5 million jobs being made available annually in the GCC, the region was one of the largest employment providers in the world.

"The $80bn annually remitted is sent to 150 million people worldwide who make use of it," he said.

Arabian Gulf countries vigilantly try to protect workers' rights, Mr Humaidan said, although they needed to be more vocal about their actions.

"Gulf countries are trying to continuously develop protection systems and laws for workers," he said.

"However, international organisations are still viewing this as insufficient, despite large strides being taken by GCC countries, therefore Gulf countries should promote more their development and support for workers rights."

Dhikra Al Rashidi, Kuwait's minister of social and labour affairs, said: "We have to concentrate on the negative impacts of expatriate workers and deal with them systematically and scientifically.

These negative impacts included cultural and social factors, she said at the conference.

Ms Al Rashidi called on GCC countries to work together to develop policies that create a balance between labour-importing and exporting countries.

She said that the exchange of information is key between the countries, as well as the development of a balance between development objectives and economic requirements.

http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/uae-staved-off-regional-unemployment-with-nearly-a-million-jobs-says-labour-minister

 

[Al Bhatti]

Only if we had the right opportunities in Pakistan just imagine what wonders Pakistanis would do and where would Pakistan be ranked.

We could easily be what UAE is in terms of Development. Pakistan could be counted somewhere between a developing nation and a developed nation in just 15 years if we have the right and honest and educated people in the government.

But this will never happen thanks to our honest and educated politicians who make sure competent people like them are appointed as ministers who in turn appoint people like themselves to work for their ministries.

 

[Yzd Khalifa]

Only if we had the right opportunities in Pakistan just imagine what wonders Pakistanis would do and where would Pakistan be ranked.

We could easily be what UAE is in terms of Development. Pakistan could be counted somewhere between a developing nation and a developed nation in just 15 years if we have the right and honest and educated people in the government.

But this will never happen thanks to our honest and educated politicians who make sure competent people like them are appointed as ministers who in turn appoint people like themselves to work for their ministries.

Pakistan first and Pakistan only

 

[Al Bhatti]

May 16, 2013

60% of migrant workers better off in UAE, according to survey

A survey of migrant workers in the UAE has found that 63 per cent of earnings are sent home - an average of Dh10,000 each annually.

The UAE University poll of four major labour-sending countries also revealed that 60 per cent of respondents thought they were better off for moving to the UAE.

The study, which was conducted at the end of last year, is the first to include workers still in the country and those who left after several years, and it included workers from various industries, from unskilled to skilled.

A total of 974 expatriates from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philippines took part, according to Dr Omar Al Nuaimi, an assistant professor for business and economics at the university, who spoke on the sidelines of the conference yesterday.

"This study is aimed at understanding the situation of temporary workers in the UAE. For this purpose, workers from India, Bangladesh, the Philippines and Pakistan were surveyed," Dr Al Nuaimi said.

He said many of the workers polled come to the UAE without any training and they were earning about Dh200 to Dh250 a month in their homeland, a figure that was multiplied by an average of five times on arrival here. "About 45 per cent of workers have debts before coming to the UAE, more than 70 per cent claimed their skills improved while in the UAE and 40 per cent were able save money in the first six months," Dr Al Nuaimi said.

Newcomers were often helped by relatives already working here, the study found, and relatives in the home countries spent about 80 per cent of the remitted money on meeting their basic needs, with a very small amount spent on education and other needs.

"The cost of migration is lowest among Filipinos, despite receiving the highest salary while in their country," Dr Al Nuaimi added. "The highest migration cost is borne by the Bangladeshis while they receive the lowest salary. It is thought that this is the effect of competition, which is rather fierce in Bangladesh compared with the Philippines."

Once here though, Bangladeshis' remittances are hugely important for those at home, according to Dhaka University professor of international relations, refugee and migratory movements, Dr Chaudhury Rafiqul Abrar.

"The remittance inflow to Bangladesh was further augmented in the past year when Bangladeshi migrant workers set a record by remitting US$14.2 billion (Dh52.2bn) in a single year," he said.

Dr Abrar added that, over the past 37 years, the GCC has accounted for more than 78 per cent of the total flow of Bangladeshi workers overseas, with 31 per cent in Saudi Arabia and 27 per cent in the UAE.

60% of migrant workers better off in UAE, according to survey - The National