LATIN AMERICA – Remittances from Latin American immigrants abroad will fall by US$5 billion in 2009 owing to the global crisis, a seven percent drop from 2008. This will leave 1 million families in Latin America without a regular source of income according to a report by the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA).
The report, called “Global Recession, Migration and Remittances: Effects on Latin American and Caribbean Economies”, says that in 2009 “immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean will remit US$64 billion, down from US$69 billion in 2008,” reported DPA. Caribbean and Central American countries will be affected most, particularly Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador.
The sharp fall in transfers will reduce each of these countries' Gross Domestic Products (GDP) by one percent in 2009.
Factors such as job losses in the U.S. and Europe, lower incomes and slower immigration will prevent hundreds of thousands of migrants from sending money home, reported BBC Mundo.
The Caracas-based SELA organisation predicted that approximately 1 million people will stop sending money to their families back home and, according to DPA, 25 percent of those employed will remit 10 percent less than in 2008. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) also forecast a reduction in cash transfers in 2009 and reported a regional drop of between 11 and 13 percent in January compared to the same period in 2008.
Natasha Bajuk, a remittance specialist at the IDB's Multilateral Investment Fund, told BBC Mundo that the downward trend began in mid-2007 and reached its peak in the first quarter of 2009. Figures for Ecuador are particularly alarming with money transfers in the last quarter of 2008 falling by 20 percent compared to the same period in 2007.
http://www.infosurhoy.com/en/article/2604/
The report, called “Global Recession, Migration and Remittances: Effects on Latin American and Caribbean Economies”, says that in 2009 “immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean will remit US$64 billion, down from US$69 billion in 2008,” reported DPA. Caribbean and Central American countries will be affected most, particularly Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador.
The sharp fall in transfers will reduce each of these countries' Gross Domestic Products (GDP) by one percent in 2009.
Factors such as job losses in the U.S. and Europe, lower incomes and slower immigration will prevent hundreds of thousands of migrants from sending money home, reported BBC Mundo.
The Caracas-based SELA organisation predicted that approximately 1 million people will stop sending money to their families back home and, according to DPA, 25 percent of those employed will remit 10 percent less than in 2008. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) also forecast a reduction in cash transfers in 2009 and reported a regional drop of between 11 and 13 percent in January compared to the same period in 2008.
Natasha Bajuk, a remittance specialist at the IDB's Multilateral Investment Fund, told BBC Mundo that the downward trend began in mid-2007 and reached its peak in the first quarter of 2009. Figures for Ecuador are particularly alarming with money transfers in the last quarter of 2008 falling by 20 percent compared to the same period in 2007.
http://www.infosurhoy.com/en/article/2604/
