The immigrants in Spain whose money is destined for home

[Ferran]

The immigrants in Spain whose money is destined for home



No other country in Europe sees more remittances sent to other countries

On any day of the week, money exchange offices in Madrid throng with immigrants sending cash to relatives back home. Their remittances are often the biggest source of income for impoverished families in Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America. But just as a money transfer has a sender and a recipient, there are also two sides to the story behind the boom in international remittances.

Madrid, together with Catalonia, sends more money abroad than any other region in Spain, which is itself now the country that sends the most remittances in Europe due to the massive influx of migrants in recent years. In 2006, the last year for which figures are available, more than EUR 1.5 billion left the Madrid region as immigrant remittances, most of it going to Ecuador and Colombia. The latter country, 83,000 of whose nationals are living in Madrid, is the biggest recipient of money from immigrants here.

Remittances have changed lives, helping people pay for food, build homes and send their children to school. But the need to keep sending the cash has also exacted a toll on the family members who emigrated to Spain in order to support relatives back home.

"You think about the nice climate, your family and your friends. If I could be there now I would, but I've got to save," says Sandra Milena Zuleta, a 29-year-old Colombian dental assistant, working in Madrid.

Sandra arrived in the Spanish capital together with her aunt, 38-year-old Rocío Zuleta, five years ago from Medellín. They started working as cleaners, with Sandra earning around EUR 500 a month, approximately five times the amount she made selling kitchen appliances in Colombia. But life was not easy, despite what she had heard from migrants who had gone before her.

"In Medellín they say that everything is wonderful in Madrid, that it's easy to find work, but no one tells you about how lonely it is. Initially I became depressed, and I thought I wouldn't be able to go on," Sandra recalls.

She did struggle on, however, and today continues to send home between EUR 150 and EUR 200 a month after working 12- or 13-hour days. The recipient of the money is her 47-year-old mother Gladys Cano.



"Sandra is the one who keeps us alive," she says, seated in her small house in the Florencia district of Medellín. "It must be very hard for her there, but it's what she has to do. She is supporting this family."

Besides Sandra, whose father abandoned her and her mother when she was a teenager, seven other members of the family have emigrated to Spain and to the United States. The effects of their remittances and of relatives of other Florencia residents are evident across the district. Formerly one-storey houses are gaining new floors almost every month, new properties are being built and the crime rate has fallen well below the level it was during the drug wars a decade ago. Shops and bars now boast names such as Gran Vía and El Escorial. Not everyone, however, believes that emigrating is such a good thing.

"It seems very sad to me that you have to leave your country," notes Ricardo, Sandra's 25-year-old brother. "You end up in a different culture, you don't have your family around you and you don't have friends. People are always going to discriminate against you. For example, I've been told that immigrants earn less than Spaniards."


However, he admits that in Medellín there are "few opportunities" for work and that his sister's remittances do go some way to paying his way through college. But he is not awed by the migrants who return displaying all the trappings of newfound wealth.

"Everyone says that everything is going great, they never say anything is bad. When they come they show off, they're very ostentatious. Some have bought apartments and cars," Ricardo notes.

Álvaro, Gladys' 34-year-old brother, is equally realistic. "Unless you get involved in some dodgy business, people both here and there have to work just like anywhere else," he says. "I no longer believe in paradises."

[Copyright El Pais / JUANJO ROBLEDO 2008]



Source: The immigrants in Spain whose money is destined for home - Expatica

[Marulus]

It is the typical guest worker thing.

[Marulus]

IMMIGRATION: REMITTANCES FROM EU TO MEDITERRANEAN INCREASE**

(By Chiara De Felice) (ANSAmed) - BRUSSELS, APRIL 28 - The incomes received by immigrants and then sent to their countries of origin are a resource on which the governments in Mediterranean are becoming increasingly dependant: according to a recent survey by the European Investment Bank (EIB), the remittances of foreign workers have increased the volume of foreign investments and development aid received from international organisations. The survey, funded by the Facility for Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnership (FEMIP), sheds light on the funds transferred from Europe to eight south Mediterranean countries (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey), a turnover that represents between 2% and 20% of the gross domestic product of the Mediterranean countries. The "official" amount of transfers made immigrants to the eight of the ten Mediterranean countries partners of the EU stands at 7.1 billion euro a year, a figure to which unofficial transfers of around 7.0 billion or 8.0 billion euro are added, according to EIB experts. This volume exceeds by far foreign investments in the South Mediterranean ($6.4 billion a year) and development aid ($4.3 billion a year). The countries which benefit most from the money of their emigrants are Morocco, which in 2003 received 2.9 billion euro, followed by Algeria (1.35 billion euro), Turkey (1.3 billion euro), Tunisia (950 million euro) and Egypt (544 million euro). Eurostat, the EU statistics agency, said that most of the remittances made by immigrants living in the EU go to Africa, Morocco in particular. According to data by Eurostat which drew a map of the remittances flows in 2004, the most consistent money flow to African countries comes from France (59.6% of the French remittances go the South Mediterranean), followed by Belgium (35.9%), the Netherlands (31.2%) and Italy (30.6%). However, EIB warned, remittances often fall prey to speculation, such as that on the part of money transfer companies which are the main channel through which the foreign workers' pays travel. That is why the bank has proposed the creation of an Internet site to help immigrants choose the most economical method of transferring their funds, a solution which would also favour the competition between companies such as Western Union or Money Transfer which send money throughout the world charging high commissions. The survey also includes a series of recommendations to the banks on both coasts of the Mediterranean to help immigrants manage their funds (creating ad hoc financial instruments such as investment funds) and teach them how to use the systems already operative in European countries such as bank transfers. (ANSAmed).

2008-04-28

[source]

[Menydh]

The incomes received by immigrants and then sent to their countries of origin are a resource on which the governments in Mediterranean are becoming increasingly dependant

I think that that's a reason why Morocco does not allow its migrants to renounce their Moroccan nationality, when they take on another.