First posted 18:50:44 (Mla time) January 18, 2007
Delfin Mallari Jr.
Southern Luzon Bureau
MANILA, Philippines -- The growing dependence of the country’s economy on the money sent home by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) has become alarming, the head researcher of the think tank Ibon Foundation Inc. said.
Sonny Africa said the OFWs had become the government’s biggest source of precious dollars, remitting $11.4 billion from January to November last year.
What is alarming, he said, is that the remittances were equivalent to 10 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
“The double digit mark makes the Philippines the most overseas remittance-dependent economy of any significant size in the world. This means that the economy continues to be kept afloat by the external and volatile OFW remittances, and not by a strong local economic capacity,” he said in a statement furnished the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
He added that the declines in domestic investment implied a diminishing capacity to expand production and warned of a slowdown in the near future.
Africa pointed to the glaring lack of decent jobs in the country as the main factor on the exodus of Filipinos seeking employment overseas.
According to an Ibon research, an estimated 3,000 Filipinos leave the country everyday to find jobs abroad.
“The sheer scarcity of jobs is already a sign that all is not well and that the economy lacks an internal dynamism that is able to productively harness and employ the Filipino workforce,” Africa said.
Ibon is an independent development institution established in 1978 and provides research, education, publications, information work and advocacy support on socioeconomic issues.
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/news/view_article.php?article_id=44209
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