Migrant labour helping reduce Asian poverty: ADB

0 Comments | AFP, April, 2008

MANILA (AFP) — Asia's 54 million migrant labourers are helping reduce widespread poverty, and the region's governments should make it easier for them to move and work, the Asian Development Bank said Wednesday.

In its annual outlook report, the Manila-based ADB said migrant workers in Asia sent back 108.1 billion dollars in remittances to developing regions in 2007, or more than one-third of the global total.

"Migration does raise income levels for many poor," it said. "International migration and remittances contribute importantly to poverty reduction in Asian countries."

Despite those benefits, regulations are still "quite restrictive in most countries and are certainly much less liberal than those governing the movement of goods," the ADB said.

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