South Asian remittances: Implications for development

Contemporary South Asia

Volumn 13, Issue 4, 2004, Pages 403-420

  Seddon, David ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CAPITAL FLOW; MIGRANTS REMITTANCE;

ASIA; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; EURASIA; SOUTH ASIA; WORLD;

CAMISSONIA OVATA;

EID: 20044389348     PISSN: 09584935     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09584930500070639     Document Type: Article

References (47)

1. Loretta Napoleoni, Modern Jihad: Tracing the Dollars behind the Terror Networks (London: Pluto Press, 2003), p 198.
2. Notably HM Customs and Excise, pers. comm.
3. As has been remarked in a recent study of remittances sent abroad by ethnic minority communities in the United Kingdom. See Michael Blackwell and David Seddon, Informal Remittances from the UK: Values, Flows and Mechanisms. A Report to DFID (Norwich: University of East Anglia Overseas Development Group, 2004).
4. Since June 2003, in the United Kingdom all money transfer operators must, by law, be registered. Some consider such registration to be sufficient regulation; for others (e.g. HM Customs & Excise) it is generally regarded as insufficient. But such registration officially brings the previously 'informal' operators within the regulated sector.
5. Peter Stalker, A No-Nonsense Guide to International Migration (Oxford: New Internationalist Publications in association with Verso, 2001). He suggests that 'allowing for the funds that pass through unofficial channels, the global flow of remittances to developing countries is probably more than $100 billion'.
6. See Blackwell and Seddon, Informal Remittances.
7. E.g. M. El Qorchi, J. Wilson and S. M. Maimbo, Informal Funds Transfer System (Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, Monetary Exchange Affairs Department and Middle Eastern Department and The World Bank Financial Sector, 27 November 2002).
8. DFID and The World Bank, International Conference on Migrant Remittances: Development Impact, Opportunities for the Financial Sector and Future Prospects, October 9th and 10th, 2003. Report and Conclusion.
9. According to the United Nations Security Council Committee pursuant to resolution 1267 (1999), the turnover of the informal money transfer systems worldwide (the hawala system as they refer to it) is US$200 billion a year. See UN Security Council Committee, 22 September 2002.
10. El Qorchi, Wilson and Maimbo, op.cit Ref. 7.
11. Undertaken by a small team of researchers with support from the UK Department for International Development, and published as David Seddon, Jagannath Adhikari and Ganesh Gurung, The New Lahures: Foreign Labour Migration and the Remittance Economy of Nepal (Kathmandu: Institute of Development Studies, 2001);
12. David Seddon, Jagannath Adhikari and Ganesh Gurung, 'Foreign labour migration and the remittance economy of Nepal', Critical Asian Studies, Vol 34, No 1, March 2002, pp 19-40.
13. Al Qorchi, Wilson and Maimbo, op cit, Ref 12, Appendix II. They attribute a great deal to the move away from fixed exchange rates.
14. The Guardian, 31 March 2004, p 15.
15. These are estimates based on IMF figures for individual countries.
16. These are estimates based on IMF figures for individual countries.
17. Al Qorchi, Wilson and Maimbo (op cit, Ref 12) suggest that, in the case of Sri Lanka, some 38 per cent of remittances go unrecorded. In the case of India, the figure is substantially lower at 16 per cent, while in the cases of Pakistan and Bangladesh the proportion of unrecorded remittances is much higher at 55 and 59 per cent, respectively, so that well over one-half of all remittances are unrecorded.
18. Seddon, Adhikari and Gurung, op cit, Ref 13, 2001.
19. Several sources were utilised for this section, notably Stephen Castles and Mark J. Miller, Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, third edition, 2003).
20. These are rough estimates based on data provided by the Asian Migrant Yearbook 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002-2003, published by the Asian Migrant Centre, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
21. Based on figures provided by D. Seddon, 'From the Himalayas to the Gulf', paper presented to the Conference on 'Globalisation and the Gulf', university of Exeter, June 2001.
22. A number of sources were used for this section, including Al Qorchi, Wilson and Maimbo, op cit, Ref 12;
23. M. Al Qorchi, 'The hawala system', Finance and Development, Vol 39, No 4, December 2002;
24. Roger Ballard, A Background Report on the Operation of Informal Value Transfer Systems (Hawala) (unpublished paper, 2003);
25. Roger Ballard, Processes of Consolidation and Settlement in Remittance-Driven Hawala Transactions between the UK and South Asia (paper presented to the World Bank/DFID International Conference on Migrant Remittances, London, October 2003);
26. Blackwell and Seddon, op cit, Ref 5.
27. The process of registration has proved slow and there are still many money transfer operations that remain unregistered and therefore, strictly, illegal. Most of these are smaller hawala businesses.
28. Passas Nikos, Hawala and Other Informal Value Transfer Systems: How to Regulate Them? (United States Department of State International Information Programs, 2003), http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/ea/ chinaaliens/shawala.htm.
29. Alicia Herbert and Elaine Kempson, Credit Use and Ethnic Minorities, PSI Report 818, (London: Policy Studies Institute, 1996).
30. Herbert and Kempson, op. cit Ref 25.
31. Although somewhat risky, 'the Village Phone [a Grameen Telecom initiative which offers telephones in small communities, thereby allowing even village women to maintain contact with their husbands or other relatives abroad] enables people to monitor this activity [the flow of remittances] much more closely'. See D. Richardson, R. Ramirez and M. Haq, Grameen Telecom's Village Phone Programme in Rural Bangladesh: a multi-media case study (Guelph: Telecommunications Development Group), cited in Stalker, op cit, Ref 8.
32. cited in Stalker, op cit, Ref 8.
33. Richard Black, 'Soaring remittances raise new issues', Migration Information Source, 2003, http://www.migrationinformation.org/ Feature/display.cfm?ID=127.
34. I b i d.
35. Roger Ballard, 'The political economy of migration: Pakistan, Britain and the Middle East' in J. Eades (ed), Migrant Workers and the Social Order (London: Tavistock, 1987).
36. F. Ellis, Rural Livelihoods and Diversity in Developing Countries (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000).
37. As reported verbally by Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit Director Tasneem Siddiqui at a 2004 meeting hosted by DFID in London to discuss the report by Blackwell and Seddon, op cit, Ref 5.
38. Seddon, Adhikari and Gurung, op cit, Ref 13, 2001, 2002.
39. Blackwell and Seddon, op. cit. Ref. 5.
40. I b i d.
41. Personal comment to the author by a member of the Sri Lankan community who prefers to remain anonymous, 2004.
42. Pers. Comm. by LTTE supporter.
43. Napoleoni, Modern Jihad, op. cit. Ref 3.
44. Oliver, The Guardian, 28 February 2004.
45. I b i d.
46. Napoleoni, Modern Jihad, op cit, Ref 3., p 133.
47. Pers. Comm. by a representative of MoneyGram.