July 15, 2009

The remittances immense economic importance is rewarded with minimum political relevance

Sir in reference to your “Survival lessons for developing countries” July 15 and that discusses
the vital economic importance of remittances for developing nations I would like to contrast that to their almost non-existent political importance.

For instance, in the case of Honduras the remittances signify 25% of the GDP of Honduras. If we assume that the migrant workers remit 20% of what they earn we can then calculate that their gross earnings represents 122% of Honduras GDP. And so, if we divide the 122% by the net 75.5% GDP that was produced domestically, in Honduras, then we have that the Honduran migrant workers outside Honduras produce a bit more than 1.6 times what is produced in Honduras.

In other words it is the Honduras migrant workers that with immense sacrifices carry their poor homeland on their shoulder but yet no one asks their opinions in relation to the recent events in Honduras. Shame on the Hondurans back home, the minimum one could in such circumstances expect is that the migrant workers had at least 30 percent of the seats in the Honduras Congress.