BISHKEK (TCA) — Kyrgyzstan has updated the historical maximum for remittances from Russia. In the first three months of 2017, labor migrants from Kyrgyzstan working in Russia transferred $433 million to their homeland, which is 67% more than in the same period in 2016, the National Bank of Kyrgyzstan said. Prior to this, migrants transferred the most money for the same period in 2013 ($411.5 million).
Labor migrants transferred $1.168 billion to Kyrgyzstan in 2015 and $1.991 billion in 2016 (30% of GDP).
From January 2005 to March 2017, Kyrgyz migrants transferred $16.4 billion from Russia to Kyrgyzstan, which is more than 95% of all money transfers from individuals to the country. For comparison, $570 million was transferred to Kyrgyzstan from all foreign countries (with the exception of the CIS), and $230 million from Kazakhstan for the past 12 years.
Over the past five years, the largest remittances of labor migrants from Russia to Kyrgyzstan were in 2013 ($2.1 billion). In 2014-2015, due to the economic crisis in Russia, the fall of remittances was caused by the economic recession and the sharp fall in the ruble’s exchange rate against the dollar.
The increase in remittances in 2016 was due to the accession of Kyrgyzstan to the Eurasian Economic Union. Last year, only the EEU countries (excluding Armenia) showed an increase in remittances from Russia, with Kyrgyzstan being the leader.
Blacklist shortening
According to the Kyrgyz Government, over 750 thousand Kyrgyz citizens are working abroad, including 616 thousand in Russia (their true number can be up to one million), 30 thousand in Kazakhstan, 15 thousand in South Korea, and 30 thousand in Turkey.
Kyrgyzstan’s MPs say that mainly the able-bodied citizens leave the country and this has a negative impact on the demographic situation in Kyrgyzstan.
By the end of 2017, it is necessary to remove 43 thousand Kyrgyz citizens from the blacklist of the Federal Migration Service of Russia, the State Migration Service of Kyrgyzstan said. At the beginning of 2017, more than 106 thousand people were blacklisted because they exceeded the legal period of stay in the country or worked illegally. Their number has decreased by more than 4 thousand compared to 2016. About 51 thousand Kyrgyz citizens were banned from entering Russia by a court decision.
It is also necessary to solve such issues as the registration of labor migrants, their social protection, and clarify the terms of the stay of labor migrants engaged in private business, MPs said.
Statistics only
Kyrgyzstan’s economy is greatly dependent on migrant labor. Over the past five years, Kyrgyz labor migrants have transferred back home an amount equivalent to 1.5 GDPs. This amount is almost equal to the revenue of the country’s budget for 2016, Eurasia Expert says.
In total volume of remittances of individuals from Russia, Kyrgyzstan ranks third among the CIS countries ($1.7 billion), after Uzbekistan ($2.7 billion) and Tajikistan ($1.9 billion) in 2016.
Considering the share of remittances in the GDP, Kyrgyzstan occupies the second place (30%) in the CIS after Tajikistan (50%). In Uzbekistan, which has a much more developed economy, migrants’ remittances account for 5% of GDP.
If compare the remittances of migrants with foreign direct investments, over the past year, FDI in Kyrgyzstan’s economy was $654.6 million. Thus, migrants transferred to their homeland almost three-fold more than foreign investors invested in the country.
Migration in Tajikistan
An expert of the Tian-Shan Analytical Center, Director of the Shark Research Center of Tajikistan Saodat Olimova recently spoke in Bishkek about results of the labor migration survey conducted in Tajikistan.
Almost 98% of Tajik migrants work in Russia. Due to the persistent economic recession in Russia, the number of Tajik labor migrants there has declined from 1.2 million in 2012 to 640 thousand in 2017.
Many construction projects have stopped in Russia, and most of the Tajik migrants returned to their homeland, while the remaining migrants, determined to wait out the hard times, live on occasional earnings and earn little. Returned migrants are engaged in agriculture, and since 2014, the productivity of agriculture has significantly increased, because the industry has more male labor. This year there has been a particularly sharp increase in this sector due to the arrival of cheap labor and investment from China. The Tajik construction sector is also developing more strongly.
Households are poor in Tajikistan, but not catastrophically. According to the survey, 20 percent of respondents said their conditions have worsened, while the others told about improvement or no change. The results were better than the researchers expected, Olimova said.
Migrants come to Russia to earn money and send it home, and they want to work legally without problems, the expert said. But the host country has many requirements for migrants who have to speak Russian, and even read Pushkin, to know when Russian Empress Catherine II entered the throne, and many other facts of Russian culture and history which are included in the exams that migrants have to pass.
“All this is good and knowledge is always encouraged, but above all, migrants should have good professional skills. In Moscow, we met with Serbs and Croats who did not speak Russian at all, but their construction qualifications were very high, and they were readily hired,” Olimova said.
Tajik labor migrants have therefore to improve their qualifications but not all young people on earnings in Russia plan to work further as plasterers and painters, because they perceive their work in Russia as a temporary measure. However, the expert forecasts that labor migration will continue among a considerable part of the Tajik youth.
