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Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Migrants’ Remittances Twice as High as FDI

The credit for keeping the economy afloat in Ukraine’s unemployment-stricken regions goes to zarobitchany, migrant workers employed throughout Europe and Russia. (UP quotes another report in Delo.)

Last year, Ukraine netted $8.4 billion worth of electronic remittances — or 8 percent of its GDP — and almost the double of its meager FDI of $4.8 billion.

According to Delo, estimates for alternative delivery services could raise that figure significantly.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

sad - sad, also not totally as bad as it seems. In absence of heavy industry in the West how else would locals support themselves?

Taras said...

Thank you, Professor Howdy:)!

As you noted, Ukraine and Kyiv are indeed wonderful, and the Ukrainian people are indeed friendly, myself included. Of course, I do speak Russian, my co-native language. And I very much appreciate your keen interest in communicating with the Ukrainian audience on the same linguistic wavelength:)

Like many other Ukrainians, I strongly identify myself with Ukrainian culture. I was born in 1980, at a time when Ukrainian, my native language, was thoroughly repressed under the Communist policy of Russification. Now that we live in independent Ukraine, we have three centuries of repressed Ukrainian culture to revive.

So, whenever I have the opportunity to level with fresh people coming to Ukraine, I always equip them with my сulturally savvy bag of tips;) You are welcome to use my blog as a cultural boot camp. You can start here.

You have a great action-packed video on your church sites!:) Your opening “soundtrack” is Piotr Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor, one of my favorite classics. Piotr Tchaikovsky was born to a Ukrainian father and French-German mother. His music always strikes a positive chord with the audience.

Don’t forget to come back! Do zustrichi! Until next time!:)

Taras said...

You're right. Instead of supporting a corrupt government, they found a courageous way to support themselves and their families back in Ukraine.

The math is very simple. While the oligarchs have been divesting Ukrainians of their industrial assets, these people have been investing in Ukrainians. That explains their status as Ukraine’s No. 1 investor.

Anonymous said...

Ah, yes, these are the people (заробічани) that Kuchma called "prostitutes."

And there have always been many derisive comments about them "cleaning toilets in Portugal."

But what did the thug Kuchma ever do for the people of Ukraine?

I have no doubt that the families in Ukraine are more than happy to get this investment from the people "who clean toilest in Portugal."

An honest day's work for an honest day's pay - nothing wrong with that at all.

At least this year, during the televised debates, Yatseniuk and other representatives from some of the parties were talking about ways of improving the Ukrainian economy so as to entice these people to come back home.

In Poland, in view of recent elections, they were talking about the same thing - bringing Poles back home.

Wonder what that "mankurt" Kuchma has to say about that?

Taras said...

Leave Kuchma aaaaaalone pleaseeeeee!!!... and how f*****g dare anyone out there make fun of Kuchma after all he’s been through???…his people turned out to be users, cheaters…he went through the Orange Revolution….and now he’s going through the retirement blues…all you people care about is making money off of him...he’s a human!!!…all you people want is more, more, more!!!...speaking of proFFessionalism, when is it proFFessional to publicly bash someone who’s going through a hard time???...leave Leonid Kuchma alone RIGHT NOW!!!...I mean it!!!…anyone who has a problem with him, you deal with me, because he had his monument vandalized, too!!!:)))

Anonymous said...

I'd, at least, try and make it easier for expats to vote in elections. I hope we do that with guest-workers from Mexico in the US.

dlw

Taras said...

It's a worthy cause. But it'll be even harder to arrange if another couple of million Ukrainians decide to vote with their feet.

Anonymous said...

T- you goin off is funnier than the youtube video (though yeah leave Britney alone and Free Winona!)
but I got another in the Kuchma bashing! His pres. decree in regards to the Black Sea fleet - no ratification by Parliament, no legality to it at all but still it stands. Time to redo the treaties in light of the modernization of the fleet which never mentioned in the supposedly temp. treaties.

Forget GM, who will have the cojones to stand up to to the Russian Fleet in the Black Sea and darn it bring those lighthouses home!

Luida

Taras said...

Thank you, Luida:)!

The “Battle of the Beacon” makes Ukrainian authorities look like strangers in their own land. The Russian Black Sea Fleet has effectively prevented Ukraine from exercising sovereignty over navigation facilities exempt from the bilateral agreement.

I can’t imagine relations of this kind between the U.S. and Italy at NASSIG.