I found this analysis on the Filipino economy that was done by Kuwait China Investment Company interesting.
Philippines’ economy highly depends on remittances, or money sent back home from Filipinos abroad to the Philippines. Last year, Filipino expatriates sent back $17.3 billion, or 11% of Philippines’ GDP. Remittance from abroad has been growing even in 2008-2009 during the global financial crisis and declined only during the Asian financial crisis in 1997-1998.
During 2009, 1.5 million more Filipinos worked abroad, 50,000 came to Kuwait, 100,000 to Hong Kong, and the rest went to mainly the Middle East and Asian countries. The graph above shows the amount of money sent by expatriates back home from Filipinos in both Kuwait and Hong Kong. The graph illustrates that although Hong Kong has double the number of Filipino expatriates compared to Kuwait, they send quadruple the amount expatriates in Kuwait send back home.
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Very interesting .. I’m learning a lot from this blog!
Are such studies made in Kuwait too? To see how much money left kuwait from expatriates?
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Naser Reply:
June 2nd, 2010 at 10:34 am
Yes it would be interesting .. my guess the amount would be substantial as more than 66% of the population are non-Kuwaitis.
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Due to post-1997 restrictions on work permits for foreigners, the Fililpinos in Hong Kong will be largely restricted to either managerialpositions or the domestic service area. As the latter predominates, the following comments are on that area. The first comment is that the Hong Kong authorities set reasonably high minimum wage standards for domestics, together with other terms of service that make earings higher than in the GCC. The second is that many domestics have been in Hong Kong for a long time, serving well paid employers. Tips from visitors and bonuses can be substantial. When visiting my brother in Hong Kong the standard tips were HK$1,00 to the (Chinese( driver and HKS500 each to the housekeeper and the maid. And my brother had a lot of visitors. The third is that most domestics have free time only on Sundays and have limited ways to sensibly spend money in what is a very expensive place.
More generally OFW remittances are a two-edged sword for the Philippines economy. On the plus side it means jobs and FX remittances in an economy where employment opportunities are limited. On the minus side however it generally means that people that have been trained to be teachers and nurses end up being waitresses and cleaners – a gross misapplication of human capital. There is also the societal cost in terms of broken marriages, absent parents etc etc.
I rather suspect that the safety valve of massive emigration (and the band-aid of FX remittances it brings) has been a major factor in allowing the Filipino elites the luxury of corruption, misgovernment and general incompetence that would have otherwise caused a change of system by now. Hard to have a “revolution” if all the people with initiative and a work ethic have left.
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benjasem and naser -
this data is usually publicly available from the central bank (might need a call or two) or from various economic databases under the ‘balance of payments’ category (see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_payments). you just have to dig it up and tabulate it in a report usually. no magic there.
also note that the central bank of kuwait will put you on their monthly mailing list (snail mail or email) for their reports FREE of charge. i get their reports at the office like clockwork in the local mail. just sign up here: http://www.cbk.gov.kw/WWW/index.html
here’s what they say on the site:
“Hard copies of the publications of the Central Bank of Kuwait are available free of charge upon request. For your convenience, we have made it possible to register for our mailing list online. “
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