Moldova has one of largest migrations – WB report

A recent report of the World Bank (WB) “Migration and Remittances: Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union” revealed that the migration from Moldova to Russia and Western Europe is large. As a portion of the population, Moldova is one of the largest emigration countries in the world. According to the report, significant remittances to Moldova have helped reduce household poverty and provide essential foreign exchange. Official remittances constitute over 20 percent of GDP, and actual remittances may be larger. Also, the report forecasts that Migration within and from the transition economies of Europe and Central Asia will likely continue to increase as declining birthrates across much of the region will lead to an increased demand for a young labor force. Migration to Western Europe has increased significantly over the past 15 years, with Western Europe receiving 42 percent of migrants from Central and Eastern Europe, as well as growing numbers of migrants from the former Soviet Union. Russia attracts migrants from the rest of the former Soviet Union, primarily from the Caucasus and Central Asia, and poorer Central Asian workers migrate to resource-rich Kazakhstan. Ukraine and Poland both serve as transit points for migrants on their way to Western Europe. Remittances are one consequence of migration that benefit both the migrants’ families and their home countries. For many of the poorest countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia they are the largest source of outside income and have served as a cushion against the economic and political turbulence of the past 15 years. Remittances represent over 20 percent of GDP in Moldova and Bosnia and Herzegovina and over 10 percent in Albania, Armenia, and Tajikistan. The authors of the report say that to ensure that migration benefits both sending and receiving countries and the migrants themselves, countries could more closely coordinate their policies so that the supply of migrant labor can meet demand through legal channels that respect the rights of migrants and are politically and socially acceptable to migrant-receiving countries. According to Bryce Quillin, World Bank Economist and co-author of the report, existing bilateral agreements can be improved to facilitate migration in the region by matching the supply of migrant labor with the demand through economic incentives. According to the author, there are no ready-made solutions for effective migration policy, yet one possible route might be to combine short-term migration with incentives for return or circular migration. Circular migration could allow migrants to spend short periods of time abroad without creating new amounts of permanent migration. The report ascertains potential benefits of circular migration. First of all, receiving countries could fill labor shortages, increase revenue, and reduce social tensions related to undocumented and unmanaged migration. Secondly, sending countries would accumulate human capital that might otherwise be lost. At the same time, migrants could increase their income, build human capital and financial savings, maintain links with their families, pay lower remittance costs, and create trade/investment linkages between countries. About 500 thousand – 1 mln persons are working abroad. The population of Moldova diminished from 4.4 mln, the figure of the census organized in 1989, and 3.9 mln, the figure of 2004. The total remittances (official and unofficial) wired by the Moldovan citizens working abroad in 2006, could amount to about USD 1.2 – 1.3 bln.