Workshop: India

1. According to Gangury-Scrase & Scrase (1999) had globalisation in India provided significant improvement of living for lower-income workers by 1999? Justify.

After the ratification of the GATT India's economy has experienced many changes due to globalization, this changes are both economically and cultural. But this liberalization has had a contradictory effect on social structure.

Globalization has defiantly improved the situation of the country, due to the greater access to information, knowledge, credit access and women have more working areas to choose. Changes can also be seen as well in the sexual mores, the dating practices and there's even a growing rejection to arranged marriages.

But the social benefits are not so clear.

Gangury-Scrase & Scrase (1999) findings are very interest but quite disappointing, first of all income levels have risen for the lower middle classes, but their purchasing power has remain flat because of high levels of inflation. Second, the credit access has improve for this class but it comes with "the price" of paying monthly high interest rates and takes them in to a cycle of consumptions and debt. Third, they have aspirational desires of consumptions that can not be real because of debt concerns. Fourth, even though they are happy about the opening in electronic media, some foreign content "attacks" their culture and morality and also increase their consumerism. And finally there's a resilience of Bengali culture.

(Frumin 2009) Despite its annual economic growth of more than 6% since the early 1990s, India is a country that "has barely scratched its potential," Mr. Nilekani writes. It has "enormous advantages in its youngpopulation and its entrepreneurs,"-the country's median age is a shocking 23-"a growing it capability, an English-speaking workforce and strength as a democracy." And yet one-third of the population is illiterate; 90% of students drop out before they reach high school; cities are unplanned, sprawling messes; electricity is spotty; roads are clogged, potholed or nonexistent; laws and governance are arbitrary and stilted; and hundreds of millions of people live in poverty.

2. How is the situation for workers in India today?

(Schuman 2009) In January the Federation of Indian Export Organizations warned that 10 million Indian workers might lose theirs in coming months, amid what A. Sakthivel, the group's president, called "the worst year in history" for exporters.

(Tripathi 2007) Only 8 per cent of India's workforce of 430 million people are in the organised sector where unions may represent them. And within that sector, the proportion who work for companies that supply to multinationals - and hence may come under the gaze of western NGOs - is even smaller. Their campaigns to improve conditions of workers at such factories make the headlines and provide relief to some. But they cannot transform the system.

(Robinson 2009) Indians believe in a kind of demographic destiny: because India will pass China as the most populous country on earth sometime in the next couple decades, many are sure India will become a huge world power as well. To ensure continued success, however, India's government will have to find a way to spread the benefits of the current boom. Hundreds of millions of people remain mired in poverty; the child malnutrition rate is an incredible 45%, higher than in sub-Saharan African countries like Ethiopia; and pockets of rebellion, especially in India's vast rural areas, where two-thirds of the people still live, threaten long-term stability. If India gets it right, though, the 21st century could belong to the world's biggest democratic freemarket just as much as it does to a certain Communist behemoth to the north.

3. How cultural globalisation has affected Indian in the last 2 decades?

(Sen 2007) With a sweeping and ambitious vision for liberalization, privatization and globalization, India threw open the doors to economic reform in the early 1990s – and the staggeringly successful results continue to accumulate. Ironically, only after thousands of years of culture, higher education, innovation and other important contributions to humankind in engineering, science, the arts and philosophy, India is now the world's overnight success story. With 1.1 billion people living peacefully in the world's largest democracy, India is emerging as one of the truly great economic and political nations of the 21st century.

Unlike perhaps any other country, India stands as a shining testament to the power of globalization. India's GDP is growing at an astounding 8 percent, and most industries are facing the pleasant challenge of managing exceptionally high growth rates. As the second most populous country in the world and the seventh largest (by area), India already boasts the world's 12th-largest economy and the third largest in terms of purchasing power. And by most indications, its best days still lie ahead.

4. Describe India's Green Revolution. (http://www.indiaonestop.com/Greenrevolution.htm)

The world's worst recorded food disaster happened in 1943 in British-ruled India. Known as the Bengal Famine, an estimated four million people died of hunger that year alone in eastern India (that included today's Bangladesh). The initial theory put forward to 'explain' that catastrophe was that there as an acute shortfall in food production in the area. However, Indian economist Amartya Sen (recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics, 1998) has established that while food shortage was a contributor to the problem, a more potent factor was the result of hysteria related to World War II which made food supply a low priority for the British rulers. The hysteria was further exploited by Indian traders who hoarded food in order to sell at higher prices.

Nevertheless, when the British left India four years later in 1947, India continued to be haunted by memories of the Bengal Famine. It was therefore natural that food security was a paramount item on free India's agenda. This awareness led, on one hand, to the Green Revolution in India and, on the other, legislative measures to ensure that businessmen would never again be able to hoard food for reasons of profit.

However, the term "Green Revolution" is applied to the period from 1967 to 1978. Between 1947 and 1967, efforts at achieving food self-sufficiency were not entirely successful. Efforts until 1967 largely concentrated on expanding the farming areas. But starvation deaths were still being reported in the newspapers. In a perfect case of Malthusian economics, population was growing at a much faster rate than food production. This called for drastic action to increase yield. The action came in the form of the Green Revolution.

There were three basic elements in the method of the Green Revolution:
(1) Continued expansion of farming areas;
(2) Double-cropping existing farmland;
(3) Using seeds with improved genetics.

Results of the Green Revolution: Statistical Results of the Green Revolution The Green Revolution resulted in a record grain output of 131 million tons in 1978-79. This established India as one of the world's biggest agricultural producers. No other country in the world which attempted the Green Revolution recorded such level of success. India also became an exporter of food grains around that time. Yield per unit of farmland improved by more than 30 per cent between 1947 (when India gained political independence) and 1979 when the Green Revolution was considered to have delivered its goods. The crop area under HYV varieties grew from seven per cent to 22 per cent of the total cultivated area during the 10 years of the Green Revolution. More than 70 per cent of the wheat crop area, 35 per cent of the rice crop area and 20 per cent of the millet and corn crop area, used the HYV seeds.

Crop areas under high-yield varieties needed more water, more fertilizer, more pesticides, fungicides and certain other chemicals. This spurred the growth of the local manufacturing sector. Such industrial growth created new jobs and contributed to the country's GDP. The increase in irrigation created need for new dams to harness monsoon water. The water stored was used to create hydro-electric power. This in turn boosted industrial growth, created jobs and improved the quality of life of the people in villages. India paid back all loans it had taken from the World Bank and its affiliates for the purpose of the Green Revolution. This improved India's creditworthiness in the eyes of the lending agencies

The Green Revolution created plenty of jobs not only for agricultural workers but also industrial workers by the creation of lateral facilities such as factories and hydro-electric power stations as explained above. India transformed itself from a starving nation to an exporter of food. This earned admiration for India in the comity of nations, especially in the Third World.

5. Did the British Raj enriched or impoverish India? Justify.

It Impoverished India. (Lal 2008) When Did India's Growth Acceleration Begin? From the earlier account of the partial liberalization in the 1980s, it would appear that there was some acceleration in the growth rate in the 1980s. But the dash for growth, which raised growth rates just before the 1991 crisis, was not sustainable. It was the much fuller liberalization in 1991 that put India on a higher-growth path. So the 1990s should really be taken as the period when India's growth acceleration began.

By the turn of the 20th century, the struggle for complete freedom was growing more intense. Led by the Indian National Congress and the charismatic Mahatma Gandhi, who preached non-violent protest, millions of Indians engaged in campaigns of civil disobedience. At first the English rulers resisted the demands for independence; but change became inevitable, and at midnight on Aug. 15, 1947, the nation of India was born.

The break with Britain was far from smooth. States where Muslims were the majority, in the northwest and northeast of the country, were carved off as the separate nation of Pakistan. (East Pakistan would later go to war to secure its own independence as Bangladesh). Partition, as the division of Hindu and Muslim British India was called, led to the migration of some 15 million people as Hindus and Muslims rushed to make sure they were on the right side of the new national boundaries. As many as 2 million people were killed in sectarian fighting during the great reordering.

India is the world's largest democracy. For much of its existence, parliament has been controlled by the Congress party, which has long been dominated by the Nehru-Gandhi family (no relation to the Mahatma). The clan has given India three prime ministers: Jawaharlal Nehru, who held power for India's first 17 years; his daughter Indira Gandhi, who ruled in the late 1960s and '70s and again in the early '80s and who was killed by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984; and her son, Rajiv Gandhi, who took over after the death of his mother and was himself assassinated in 1991. Rajiv Gandhi's widow Sonia, Italian by birth, led the Congress party to an unexpected return to power in 2004 but turned down the prime minister's post, installing instead the highly regarded technocrat Manmohan Singh. Rajiv and Sonia's son Rahul, now a member of parliament, is often talked about as a future leader.

For many decades, India's economy remained protected and over-regulated, condemning the country, it seemed, to a disastrously slow "Hindu rate of growth." But from the early 1990s successive governments have begun to dismantle the "license Raj," which handed control of key industries to a handful of companies and suffocated competition and progress. Liberalization is credited by many with kick-starting India's economy. New industries such as data processing and software engineering, centered in such southern Indian cities as Bangalore and Chennai, have attracted thousands of jobs from the U.S. and Europe. (Western workers whose jobs have been outsourced complain of being "Bangalored.") By late 2006 growth was more than 9% a year, a rate that had international investors looking at India in the same way they had China in the early 1990s.
Bibliography:

Greg Rushford. (2008, March). INDIA: THE EMERGING GIANT. Review of medium_being_reviewed title_of_work_reviewed_in_italics. Far Eastern Economic Review, 171(2), 62-64. Retrieved May 17, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1448396571).

Finance And Economics: Bridges to somewhere; India's economy. (2009, March). The Economist, 390(8621), 82. Retrieved May 17, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1656666231).

Ben Frumin. (2009, May). IMAGINING INDIA: THE IDEA OF A RENEWED NATION. Review of medium_being_reviewed title_of_work_reviewed_in_italics. Far Eastern Economic Review, 172(4), 66-68. Retrieved May 17, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1708622951).

Business: A teacher for the times; Face value. (2009, February). The Economist, 390(8620), 72. Retrieved May 17, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1653833321).

Rick Merritt. (2008, March). Indian industry's people power is also a people problem. Electronic Engineering Times,(1520), 12,54. Retrieved May 17, 2009, from ProQuest Computing database. (Document ID: 1465578021).

Talent Challenged, Training Obsessed. (2008, March). InformationWeek,(1176), 34. Retrieved May 17, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1469310931).

Salil Tripathi. (2007, December). India's small workforce. New Statesman, 136(4873), 19-20. Retrieved May 17, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1393596801).

Deepak Lal. (2008). AN INDIAN ECONOMIC MIRACLE? Cato Journal, 28(1), 11-34. Retrieved April 19, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1474487651).

Simon Robinson. India. Time Magazine. Retrieved April 19, 2009, from www.time.com/time/topics/article/0,8599,1650448,00.html

Miachel Schuman. Potholes On the Path to Prosperity.
Time Magazine. Retrieved April 19, 2009, from www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1873191_1873190_1873187,00.html

Sudipta K. Sen (2007 June). India 2008: responding to the growth imperative. Sascom Magazine. Time Magazine. Retrieved April 19, 2009, from http://www.sas.com/news/sascom/2008q3/column_globalmarkets.html

Images Were taken from: www.shutterstock.com

AFRICA

Monica, Ana Maria y Eduardo presented this week topic: Africa.

Africa is the world's 2^nd-largest and 2^nd most-populous continent, after Asia. It has an area of 30,221,532 km² and a population 1,001,320,281(est. 2009).

Is the 2^nd largest continent but a quarter of its territory is not suitable for habitation, because it's the the Sahara Desert.

The student's presentation highlighted the differences across the continent by exploring the main countries of Africa, such as Nigeria, Congo and Kenya. They made a great resume of the history and all the problems that has had this continent over the years.

When presenting the different countries they revelead "each countries problem or conflict" factors like the post-colonialism, diamonds, guerrillas, economical and social problems, have made this continent suffer like no other. In addition to these conflicts, Africa also has other social problems like high level of malnutrition, AIDs and many other diseases.

Nigeria is characterized in the media based upon the conflicts and violence arising between subversive groups, the state and oil companies.

South Africa is a completely different face of the continent, the host of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Even thought the lecture was very enlightening, I must recognize my lack of knowledge of this continent, being a person that likes to read and know about "as much as I can" I started to read whatever I found about this continent and found a great but crude article in The Time Magazine, Next I will put the passages that I liked the most or the ones that shocked me the most (in red).

Africa has a genius for extremes, for the beginning and the end. It seems simultaneously connected to some memory of Eden and to some foretaste of apocalypse. Nowhere is day more vivid or night darker. Nowhere are forests more luxuriant. Nowhere is there a continent more miserable.

Africa -- sub-Saharan Africa, at least -- has begun to look like an immense illustration of chaos theory, although some hope is forming on the margins. Much of the continent has turned into a battleground of contending dooms: AIDS and overpopulation, poverty, starvation, illiteracy, corruption, social breakdown, vanishing resources, overcrowded cities, drought, war and the homelessness of war's refugees. Africa has become the basket case of the planet, the "Third World of the Third World," a vast continent in free fall.

Zaire's President Mobutu Sese Seko has a personal fortune that has been estimated from $4 billion to $6 billion, not far below the level of the country's external debt. He has isolated himself from his people -- and from gathering political unrest -- aboard a luxury yacht that cruises the Zaire River.

If it is to recover, Africa in the coming years will need all its mystical powers of resilience. AIDS is devastating the continent's population. It has hit as hard among the cosmopolitan, educated elite as among the villagers, a fact that threatens continuing development.

If the rate of infection continues to increase, the effect could be like that of World War I upon the youth of Britain, France and Germany.

There are 160 countries on the United Nations' annual development index, a measure of comparative economic and political progress: 32 of the lowest 40 are in Africa.

The external world's interest in Africa threatens to become merely charitable -- a matter of humanitarianism, a moral test for the West. Should the wealthy nations allow Africa to drift further and further into the margins? Says Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution: "I don't think we could live with ourselves, or would want to, if we sat by while millions of people of a different color are condemned to misery and death."

The continent's inner rhythms of development were shattered 400 years ago by the intrusion of Europeans, who brought in alien controls, boundaries and forms of government.

The continent remains connected to its powerful and -- to outsiders -- mysterious genius. Africa is different, still an inchoate self. There is a Europe, with its shared history, shared culture, shared economies -- all. Accomplished the hard way, over many centuries. There is not -- yet -- an Africa of defined, stable boundaries and economies, not yet a sense of shared destiny.

Jung once wrote, "Different people inhabit different centuries." Something in the African clock of development got smashed when Europe broke into the continent. And when the colonialists pulled out, they left the economic, political and cultural infrastructure reconfigured in such a way that the new countries served Europe better than they served one another. This result was not necessarily intentional but was profoundly damaging nonetheless. Robert Ruark touched on the cultural destruction in his novel Something of Value: "If you change a man's way of life, you had better have something of value with which to replace it."

It may be a long swoop from Africa's year 1500 to European-sounding formulas about "science and rationality." In 1961, with civil war erupting around him and his own assassination only days away, Patrice Lumumba, the newly independent Congo's first Prime Minister, wrote a letter to his wife in which he conjured a splendid vision: "History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that is taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington or in the United Nations . . . Africa will write her own history, and . . . it will be a glorious and dignified history."

Perhaps, for the moment, African glory lies around a historical bend of the river, in some unseeable future.

Bibliography:

LANCE MORROW; William Dowell/Abidjan, J.F.O. McAllister/Washington and Marguerite Michaels/Nairobi. (1992 Sep 07). Africa: the Scramble for Survival. The Time Magazine. Recover April 12 2009, from www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,976401-6,00.html

Image was taken from http://www.shutterstock.com/

This week's focus was South Asia.

South Asia is a sub region of the continent located at the south of China, east of India, and the north of Australia. This sub region is very important because it includes Four of the Five "Tigers" or also known as NICs (Newly Industrialiizyng Countries).

The region is divided in two: The Mainland South East Asia and the Maritime South East Asia.

Maritime Countries: Brunei- East Timor- Indonesia - Malaysia- Philippines - Singapore- Hong Kong- Taiwan

Mainland Countries:- Cambodia- Laos - Myanmar- Thailand- Vietnam

Like East Asia, this Region is influenced by millenary philosophic trends:

• Confucianism
• Buddhism
• Taoism
• China or a strong Chinese expatriate community
• Status
• Karma
  

Some of the materials for this topic was, the presentation made by Maria Alejandra G. Which had a especial insight on Vietnam; an almost unknown country for me, if it weren't for its war.

The presentation exposes the economic and social system of this country and its history, such as the Vietnam War.

Vietnam is not an exception to its region growing trend and has a "promising" future as well.

(Greenhalgh 2009)"In five to 10 years' time, the traditional emerging markets will be too developed and the focus will shift over to the next block of countries, such as Nigeria, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam." Andrea Nannini, manager of the HSBC New Frontiers fund says.

Before the miracles of East Asian (with the exception of Japan), South Asia was already surprising the world with its development and its strong economies, like Singapore and Thailand. When thinking about this an immediately react and wonder, if the crisis is for everyone, what will happen with this tigers or potential tigers?

(Wesley 2009) How can Asian countries individually and collectively deal with this looming crisis? Unfortunately, the obvious solutions are not practical. Redrawing boundaries or relocating minorities offer the prospect of beginning an endless process of claim and counter-claim that could see a stable region unravel into chaos. Hard experience shows that re-engineering populations and boundaries often causes more conflict than it resolves. Neither do the several current proposals to forge an EU-style regional organization offer much prospect of success. Achieving Europe's current level of integration and sovereignty transfer is unlikely to happen in Asia for several decades. And it is not even certain that regional institutions defuse internal conflicts; while "Europe" may have contributed to peace in Northern Ireland, it has made little impact on Basque disgruntlement.

The solution must be a re-forging of the national compact across the states of East, Southeast and South Asia, based on the rejection of ethnic, religious or linguistic identity as a motivating force in politics. There must be a renaissance of the secular compact in Asia's states. The new secularism must be driven by three principles.

First, it must be scrupulously protected from compromise by identity politics. The original reasons for mobilizing the symbols of national majorities- however surreptitiously-are less compelling now than they were half a century ago. Then, the need to forge distinctive national identities had arisen from uncertainties about the viability and legitimacy of the political units that remained after the colonial retreat. But now, after six decades of stability and success, these insecurities are less justified. And the humiliation of colonization will decrease with each passing generation, taking with it the need to assert cultural or spiritual superiority. Second, Asia's new secularism must be popularized and promulgated throughout Asia's societies, rather than becoming again the ideology of elite dominance. Asia's secularism will not be like Europe's, where the official separation of the state and religion has been accompanied by a century-long decline in the public's interest in religion. Instead, Asia's secularism will need to be grafted onto societies in which religion plays a central role in everyday life. But even a deeply religious society can come to accept at all levels that the state must at no stage become the vehicle for advancing religious agendas, and must never be able to use ethnic, religious or linguistic symbolism in promoting its own agendas. To be effective, this agenda needs to be championed by that genuinely, deeply secular force, the media, and promoted through the public education system. Third, the integrity of Asia's new secularism needs to be constantly guarded from the forces of opportunistic populism. The most potent drivers of contemporary identity politics in Asia are driven by contemporary economic and technological events and a surge in political populism.

Bibliography:

Agarwal, Sanjeev, Thomas E DeCarlo, Shyam B. Vyas, & Source:. 1999. Leadership Behavior and Organizational Commitment: A Comparative Study of American and Indian Salespersons. Journal of International Business Studies, 30(4): 727-43.

Hugo Greenhalgh. (2009, May 18). Emerging markets of the future. Financial Times,12. Retrieved May 19, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1716686931).

Michael Wesley. (2009, April). Asia Enters An Era of Strife. Far Eastern Economic Review, 172(3), 14-18. Retrieved May 19, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1682395351).

Image taken from Shutterstock.com

CHINA

The student's presentation of this week was about China. They exposed the political, social and demographic background of the country and its impacts on its economic development.
Then they talked about the influence of capitalism in the economic growth.

Among many things, the material of this week included the case of Google in China and an Analysis of National Strategies for Sustainable Development China, a case study Prepared by: Simone Klawitter.
In order to follow this path and analyse my "own case", I searched for other interest cases about China and found A Case Study: Microsofts Experiences in China.

The Harvard Business School Published the Case: "Microsoft in the People's Republic of China", for the first time in Feb 13, 1995 and it was prepared by Tarun Khanna.
Even though the Case is a little bit old, it exposes in my opinion a great cultural Boom, I say Boom because allthought in the beginning it was a great failure, Microsoft managed to succeed in a shocking way in the foreign country.

Some important facts of the case are.

• In 1992 Microsoft entered the Chinese market, with the same strategies they had used to enter and had made them successful in Europe and United States.
• However, its entry into this market was a disaster, Microsoft was operating at a loss.
• They lost many billions of dollars in revenue before understanding this market and being successful.
• General Managers were not stable; in a one year period the company had 5 different executives, this job position started being called the "Curse of Microsoft".
  
• In United States and Europe:
  
• Microsoft charges hundreds of dollars for its Windows operating system and Office applications.
• In United States, Microsoft maintains a constant dispute with the government.
• Microsoft is known for its tendency to establish aggressive executives.
• Microsoft is the industry leader and is known for its high quality, excellent customer service and support to its products. He is recognized for its high degree of innovation and its constant concern to research and investigation.
• One of the main policies of Microsoft is to protect at all costs intellectual property rights; The Company is constantly working with the industry and the governments to understand the importance of intellectual property laws and improve its implementation.
• The tactics of Microsoft in its technology business is to "embrace, extend and extinguish" (EEE)
• In 1992 the acceptance of the brand was high, all people used Windows, but pirated copies.
• Microsoft made several lawsuits to companies for distributing its products illegally hopping to protect its intellectual property.
• The government of Beijing installed operating systems on open source Linux PCs workers.
  (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/07/23/100134488/index.htm )
• Security officers had a great concern about the possibility of being spied by the United States, due to the fact that military and government operations depended on the programs made by the company.

Here is some information that I found I think is important in order to generate a better analysis:

For centuries China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences, but between the XIX and the XX century, the country began to decline due to starvation, military defeats, internal conflicts and the occupation of foreign countries.
After the Second World War, Mao Zedong established an autocratic socialist system that ensured China's sovereignty but with excessive restrictions. After 1978, his successor Deng Xiaoping, starts to improve the living standards and develops the economy.
In Addition to all this, China also suffered the Opium War, which was a great humiliation for the country. It is because of this war that the culture became xenophile.

Since 1978 the annual growth of GDP is around 9%. For 2007 it was 11.4%. The country's economy has changed during this last quarter of century in an unbelievable way.

From being a central planning system, closed to international trade, China change in a market-oriented economy with a rapidly growing private sector. In 2007 it became the second largest economy in the world after the United States (not in per capita income).
The government is very important in the growth of the economy.

The Chinese nation is deeply rooted in the moral concepts of the two great philosophers, Confucius and Lao-zi, respectively creators of Confucianism and Daoism. Punctuality is expected and will not tolerate tardiness. The long-term relationships are considered extremely valuable.

Mistakes of Microsoft:

• The company entered China with the classical model: hang a poster that says "Microsoft: Open for Business "(Craig Mundie) ttp://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/07/23/100134488/index.htm
• High piracy was taking place in the streets of China and the prices charged to the products by Microsoft where very high; their Anti piracy policies were excessively harsh.
• There was a desperate search to sell "at all costs."
• The executives in charge of operations were rookies, and in addition they agree with the strategies so they failed in the implementations.
• Microsoft came to the Chinese market as an arrogant company, but reality showed that it was a naive and ignorant company.
• They treated China as a transparent market and assumed a transparent regulation.
• From the beginning Microsoft assumed the superiority of its product.
• The company's efforts to make its top executives in Redmond understand China had been in vain and rejected.
• Sales of the company were above average and they were overestimated.
• The company was not focused on having a collaborative and cooperative relationship with the government.
  

Good Decisions of Microsoft:

• In 1998 Microsoft created the research center.
• IN 1999 Bill Gates sent Craig Mundie, chief executive of the company, to analyze why the company was so despised and wrongly qualified. He is currently in charge of China's strategy. From this point on, the Company started to succeed.
• In 2003 The Company hires Tim Chen.
• Currently, the company is envied due to the preferential treatment that receives from China. Bill Gates has been named honorary doctor in several universities of the country, and his relationship with political leaders is excellent.
  

The Changes of Craig Mundie:

• He made the "China Immersion Tour." where for a 1 week period, he entered 25 of the 100 vice presidents of the company.
• He hired Henry Kissinger as a consultant and as the person in charge to "open doors" for the company.
• He let the leaders know that Microsoft would help the Chinese government with one of its main priorities; create their own software industry.
• He sat down with security officers and soothed their fears of a possible espionage, and convinced them that the company's products were not a tool of American government.
  

The Changes of Tim Chen:

• He made extended training for teachers and small software business.
• He worked with the Ministry of Education to construct a 100 computer's rooms of in rural areas.
• Changed the company's perceived image of and he created a convergence between the corporate policies and the government's policies. He makes Five-year plans with the government.
  

Analysis and Conclusions:

Microsoft restructurated its entire business strategy, basically the new strategy was to become the ANTIMICROSOFT; The Company set very low prices ($ 3) and abandoned its policy on intellectual property. They began to tolerate piracy and became a friend of the government.

They let the government install its own cryptography in Windows, and in addition, they allowed China an inspection in 2003 of the source code of the program.

Chinese government began to require the use of legitimate software to authorities and PC manufacturers. Now Days, Microsoft's cooperation is very high, annually Chinese engineers travel to Redmond for trainings.

China is a great market and could become a great business opportunity, if its handled in a proper manner; taking the time and the steps necessary to understand this culture and its "way" of doing things.

Microsoft achieved success in China when they realized they couldn't change the market and the began to adapt the company in to the market.

To be a successful and profitable business in China one must work in harmony with the government and constantly seek their approval. Companies that are sincere, flexible and are committed to the government achieve success in China.

When Microsoft began to focus on understanding China; they started to understand completely the harsh criticism to which the company had been submitted.

This case demonstrates how important is to understand the culture and the ethical rules of a country, and much more, a country like China. Investing time in building the appropriate relationships with the right people can bring higher returns than an excellent advertisement.

Bibliography

Warner, Malcolm. 2004. Human resource management in China revisited: introduction. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 15(4/5): 617-34.

Ian Johnson. (2009, April 28). World News: Foreign Businesses Say China Is Growing More Protectionist. Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition), p. A.8. Retrieved May 17, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1689390691).

James Hookway. (2009, May 2). World News: Once Enemies, Vietnam Now Fights for China Funds. Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition), p. A.7. Retrieved May 17, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1695314061).

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/07/23/100134488/index.htm http://noraagnow.wordpress.com/2008/03/04/microsoft-and-wal-mart-in-china/ http://www.chinasuccessstories.com/2008/02/25/microsoft-and-wal-mart-china/

http://www.chinasuccessstories.com/2007/05/24/building-a-business-in-china/
http://www.chinapoint.org/doc.asp?docu=168
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=es&q=microsoft+en+china+cultura&spell=1: guanxi[1].zip - ZIP archive, unpacked size 111.104 bytes
http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itsv/0606/ijss/weaver.htm
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internet/choque/cultural/Microhoo/elpeputec/20080202elpepunet_2/Tes
http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/08/09/china13940.htm
http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/9/2/6921e89d-1cbb-4ce8-9b1d-44eb2d818848/Politica.doc
http://www.chinasuccessstories.com/2007/09/10/doing-business-in-china-chinese-social-and-business-culture/es/
http://www.kaifulee.com/oldwebsite/speeches/Advice_for_US_Companies_in_China.ppt#284,24,Diapositiva 24

East Asia

This week we looked in to the increasingly important region of East Asia, and its countries.
All thought I have always been passionate about this region and especially about China and Japans Culture I was still amazed by all the information that the lecturer team exposed.

This region represents a quarter of the total population of the world and its main constituents are:
• People's Republic of China (Including Hong Kong and Macau)
• Japan
• South Korea (Republic of Korea)
• North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea)
• Republic of China (Taiwan)
• Mongolia
• Siberia, Russia (considered either East Asia or North Asia)
The most predominant languages are Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Mongolian and the religions that the practice are Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Chinese folk religion, Shinto, Shamanism and even Christianity.

All of these political entities join together and as a result create a unique, rare but yet exquisite way of life. And even though it's a big mixture, diversity is not so easily perceived, due to the fact that through out history, many of these East Asian societies where part of China and its cultural sphere. That's why these cultures are at the same time similar, unique and diverse.

Although several religions are fallowed and practiced; these societies have a strong tradition and legacy and they are all influenced by Confucianism, Daoism (or Taoism) and Buddhism.

Contrary to what the speakers said, these are not religions; there are philosophies that represent a set of moral and ethical values that people must comply.

Buddhism’s Six Principles of Harmony (amtfweb):
1. Sharing the same viewpoints or goals,
2. Abiding by the same precepts,
3. Living and practicing together harmoniously,
4. Not quarrelling,
5. Experiencing the inner peace and happiness from practicing together harmoniously and
6. Sharing benefits harmoniously.

Based on the suggested lecture of this week: Lee, Jangho, Thomas W. Roehl, & Soonkyoo Choe. 2000. What Makes Management Style Similar and Distinct Across Borders? Growth, Experience and Culture in Korean and Japanese Firms. Journal of International Business Studies, 31(4): 631-52.

The lecturers emphasized the presentation on Japan, Korea. They analyzed both countries management model of this country and compare it.

Letter on I started to think on the proper question to make in order to learn a little bit more and I found myself reading even more shocking information about this economies.

(Rashid 2008)As one looks over the many momentous events that took place in the 20th century, such as the two World Wars and the Cold War, one lesser noted event stands out sharply for its long-term significance. It is the lesson East Asia has taught the World--7% economic growth is possible. And this growth can extend for decades. First Japan, then Taiwan and South Korea, then China, all have shown that 7% is not a one-shot event but a real possibility.
Ten years on from the 1997 financial crisis, East Asia is wealthier, poverty rates are lower and growth is faster than ever before. According to the World Bank, developing economies in East Asia grew by an average of 9.5 per cent in 2006.

Low income countries such as Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Mongolia also grew at an impressive 8 to 10 per cent. According to World Bank estimates, in 2006 the number of people in East Asia living on less than US$2 a day fell to around 29 per cent of the population.


And this is only the top of the iceberg, I'm sure that this region will manage to keep surprising the world. (SinoCast 2008) In December of 2008 Leaders of China, Japan and South Korea agree to create a logistics system in East Asia that is seamlessly linked, environmental-friendly, safe and efficient, in a bid to promote the convenient mutual trade and economic growth. The three countries have reached consensus in starting trilateral cooperation in energy, logistics, customs, industries, and finance. The leaders expected a closer partnership would help them fight against the global financial turmoil triggered by the subprime debt crisis in the US.

The three sides will also strengthen the financial dialogue and cooperation among their finance ministries, central banks and other financial regulatory organs to concentrate effort on the stabilization of the regional financial market.


After doing all this readings I started to think on Confucianism and Daoism and realized that perhaps this influences and this "way of live" it's what has made these countries the miracles to watch and the role models to all poor economies and developing countries.

But the answer to this question had to be postponed because of the complexity of the research that had to be made. In juxtaposition I asked my self a simpler question.

Japan is the most evolved, solid economy of this region, what makes this country so different from others, what has this country made in order to become one of the most powerful countries of the world without having the richness of countries like Colombia? Is it some how the influence of Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism?

Japan was the first country of this region to become a "miracle" without any comparative advantage, and with a lack of territory. After the war, and starting "with nothing", the country rebuild itself into an astonishing country and became to grow in to what is today, a role model for many countries.

(Beech 2008) Until recently, the idea of Japanese values conjured up little more than a picture of workaholic company drones. But throughout the world, the world's second largest economy has suddenly been thrust into the unfamiliar position of exemplar. Developing countries such as Vietnam are studying how Japan refashioned its war-ravaged economy into a technological powerhouse that still maintains its cultural identity. Industrializing nations are looking for ecological guidance from a place that has managed to become an economic giant while still embracing a conservationist ethos. Still others gravitate toward Japan because of its trendy comic books and, not least, for its generous checkbook.

One key principle is an ability to modernize without losing its roots. "The history of Japan in modern times," says Kazuo Ogoura, president of the Japan Foundation, "is to have achieved advanced economic progress and democratic maturity without having abandoned cultural identity and traditions." Environmental protection is another cherished value in a country that is home to the Kyoto Protocol. "The leaders of Japanese industry are aware that climate change is an important issue, so they are very focused on energy efficiency," says Takashi Hongo, a special adviser to the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, which provides financing for poorer nations. "We can help developing countries enjoy the good life but to do so in a sustainable way."

Bybliography

China, Japan, South Korea to Smooth Trilateral Logistics. (2008, December 15). SinoCast China Business Daily News. Retrieved March 22, 2009, from ProQuest Asian Business and Reference database. (Document ID: 1612601351).

Hannah Beech. (2008, December). Japan Reaches Out. Time International, 172(21), 30. Retrieved March 22, 2009, from Research Library Core database. (Document ID: 1602001031).

Matthew Rees. (2008, December). Friends or Foes? Review of Finance & Development, 45(4), 51. Retrieved March 22, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1622189741).

Robert Madsen, Richard Katz. (2009). Comparing Crises. Foreign Affairs, 88(3), 159-166. Retrieved March 22, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1688945331).

Salim Rashid. (2009). The Magic of 7% Per Capita Growth. Society, 46(2), 108. Retrieved March 22, 2009, from Research Library Core database. (Document ID: 1679788101).

Tianbo Li and Gillian Owen Moreira (2005). The Influence of Confucianism and Buddhism on Chinese Business: the Case of Aveiro, Portugal. University of Aveiro
Portugal. Retrieved March 22, 2009, from www.immi.se/intercultural/nr19/tianbo

Kejun Xu, Illinois Institute of Technology. The Implications of Confucian and Daoist Values for Multinationals in Intercultural Business Communication

Henry Suen Sai-On Cheung, Reuben Mondejar. Managing ethical behaviour in construction organizations in Asia:How do the teachings of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhismand Globalization influence ethics management?

http://www.amtfweb.org/english/understandhtml/english-artistic.htm

All Images Where Taken from: http://www.shutterstock.com/

Film review: Paraiso Travel

Paraiso Travel talks about Latin Americans illegal migration to the US and throw Mexico. The movie chronicles the difficult and dramatic journey of immigrants as they make their way to America with the hope of reaching the American dream.

Even though the movie evolves around the story of a Colombian young couple, the Colombian director, Simon Brand, captures the traumatic path that Latin American immigrants go throw when swimming across the Rio Grande and walking across the Texas desert to finally get to America, as if it was the "promised land", only to become "mojados".

Mojados is a derogatory term for a person of Hispanic descent who has immigrated illegally to the United States. Commonly referring to Mexicans, although applicable to all Latinos, who have crossed the border illegally, the term originated with those who entered Texas from Mexico by crossing the Rio Grande, presumably by swimming or wading across and getting his or her back wet in the process. (www.answers.com/topic/wetback)

The movie takes place in Colombia and New York; its stars in Medellin with Reina, a teenager that like many others, is obsess with the idea of living the American dream. Reina hopes to find fortune in New York City. Marlon, her boyfriend, who is madly in love with her and entangled in her web of fantasies follows her will to reach their dreamland.

Unfortunately, the young couple doesn't have paper or sufficient money to reach their goal; so "they are forced" to take the horrible migration across Mexico. The journey that is no less than an expedition, where women are raped, men are shot and the main companions are fear, hunger, intimidation and sadness.
When the Colombian couple completes the illegal crossing, they start to experience all the troubles that include being illegal or a mojado, in the United States.

After arriving to the "big city" (NY) they got separated, and Marlon gets lost and looses all track of Reina. Luckily he meets and receives help from other immigrants. Stimulated by the idea of finding his love, goes through a nightmare and has to work in all sorts of thing in order to survive.

Shortly he realizes that he left behind his own dreams and gave up a simple life in Medellin, for a cruel and lonely reality. And that the reward for suffering all the way to America is only the promise of a little money and many long days soaked with sweat.

"Paraiso Travel" shows the harsh struggles Colombian immigrants have to endure as they make their way to the United States. As well as conquering the physical elements some face different problems, as in the case of Marlon. A young Colombian whose love is put to the test when he losses his girlfriend in New York City after a small run in with the police. The movie shows us how a small group of immigrants make their way from Colombia to Texas. The story was interesting and makes you realize the struggles of the immigrant. The movie gets it's point across by showing you the mental anguish of Marlon, a small fish in a big lake. (B. Cárdenas Cinevolver).





(Paraisotravelmovie.com) Adapted from Jorge Franco's acclaimed novel of the same title, PARAISO TRAVEL (which has broken box-office records in Colombia) is the story of Marlon Cruz (Aldemar Correa), a young Colombian man who, motivated by his girlfriend Reina (Angélica Blandón) leaves his comfortable life in Medellín and flees with her through Guatemala and Mexico, across the borders, illegally into the United States. Marlon's journey, which takes him through seedy strip clubs, dance halls, homeless hostels, and the streets of Jackson Heights ultimately takes him to a place he could not have predicted. Directed by Simon Brand with a screenplay by Jorge Franco and Juan Rendón, PARAISO TRAVEL also stars John Leguizamo, Margarita Rosa de Francisco, and Ana de la Reguera.

Paraíso Travel takes place in Colombia and New York and is spoken in Spanish, with English subtitles.
Paraiso Travel transcends a micro-understanding of Colombian immigration and assimilation into the United States and tells a larger human story of Latin American identity, all the while staying true to specific Colombian characteristics. Brand addresses why the film is not only for the Colombian and Latin public but for the American and European public as well, he says it is "because of its quality in every sense. A film like Paraíso Travel is relevant everywhere, above all in the United States, where in New York alone there are over a million Colombians and three million Latin people. It is a large community, decisive, and with growing power."

(Padgett 2008) "I wanted to make a film that makes Latin Americans think twice about traveling to the U.S. illegally," says its Colombian-born director, Simon Brand, "but one that also makes Americans think twice about how these people are treated once they get here." He scores on both counts.

The movie is very touching and emotional, but I decided to look to real cases and I found that reality it's not so different from the film, and in some occasions it can be even more crude and terrifying than the movie.

In June 2003, Robert C. Bonner, the Commissioner of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Operation Desert Safeguard, made the following statement: In the past 5 years, more than 2,000 people have died attempting to cross the border between Mexico into the United States. Over 320 people died last year alone. And one of the most treacherous and dangerous areas to cross is the Sonora desert that extends from Mexico's State of Sonora into the State of Arizona, west of Nogales.

To wrap up, I wanted to share some reviews and parts of Tommy Davis, documentary "Mojados: Through the Night" taken from (mojadosmovie.com/press/):

When Tommy Davis told people he wanted to accompany a group of migrants traveling illegally from Mexico into the United States so he could film a documentary, they told him there was no way he could pull it off.

The result is "Mojados: Through the Night," a 65-minute documentary about a group of Mexicans who hope to cross the border to find jobs so they can send money to their families back home.

Guapo nicknamed "Handsome" just wants to use his carpentry skills to export his hand-crafted furniture to the United States. Oso, they call him "The Bear," in his 50s is the oldest of the group traveling illegally to the United States using the money he earns to buy land back in Mexico. Yet, another traveler is Tigre who spends most of his time each year picking vegetables in the US returning home for Christmas with money and gifts for his family. Finally, Viejo also known as "Old Man" decides to make the grueling trip across the Rio Grande and the dangerous desert even though in the past he has resisted due to an injured leg.

Davis tracks the progress of Hansome, The Bear, Tigre, and Old Man, step for step starting in Mexico where four are shown with their impoverished families. The depiction appears to be honest revealing that jobs in Mexico are scarce and those that are available don't provide the opportunities that even the lowest paying jobs offer in America. The risk associated with the walk seems worth the trouble at first, but as the hours and the days pass, we learn quickly why some 2000 people die each year attempting to make the hike.

In shooting Mojados: Through the Night, Davis ate what the four men ate (increasingly green tortillas, while they lasted), drank what they drank (water scavenged from cattle tubs, when they could find it), slept among the cacti, and schlepped 80 pounds of gear.

Nevertheless, he managed to keep his spirits up, at least most of the time.

"At one point, I knew we were walking in a circle, but I didn't have a compass to prove it," Davis recalls. "Finally I just sat down on the ground and told them I needed a break."

"Oso" was the veteran of several trips north, and he made Davis prove his grit by climbing a mountain with him. He also taught Davis the rules of the desert. "You can't take a knife or anything that might be used against you," he explains. "And if anyone gets hurt and can't go on, they're left behind."

"It just shows we have no clue what people will do for a job," Davis says. He recalls meeting a 12-year-old who had made it to Arizona but lost his family in the process. "I asked where he was going, and he said, 'Florida,'" Davis says. "It was 110 degrees that day, and he was ready to just start walking."

Bibliography

Tim Padgett. (2008, March 11). An Honest Look at Illegal Immigration. Time Magazine. Retrieved March 15, 2009, from www.time.com/time/arts/article. (Document ID: 0,8599,1721458,00).

U.S Customs and Border Protection. (2003, June 3). Statement Of Robert C. Bonner Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Operation Desert Safeguard. Retrieved March 15, 2009, from www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/commissioner/speeches_statements/archives/2003/jun032003.xml
http://www.paraisotravelmovie.com/

http://www.mojadosmovie.com/press/

http://www.flixster.com/movie/paraiso-travel/reviews/Cinevolver?lsrc=MD-ANON-TP-REV-MORE

An approach to Reality: Expatriates and migrant workers

This week's topic touches one of the most "talked" international issues in our present time and is perhaps, till now, the most "near" topic to our country and reality; Expatriates and Migration Workers.

According to the presenters in charge; Migration is the movement of people from one place in the world to another for the purpose of taking up permanent or semi-permanent residence, usually across a political boundary, and an expatriate, is a person who lives or works outside of his or her own home country on a non-permanent basis.

The phenomenon of Migration is influenced by "Push" or "Pull" factors; these factors are the ones that make this "movement" hard or easy.

In developing countries such as our country, the decision to migrate is most of the times taken based on the ideas and believes of finding a better quality of life, having job opportunities, education, security and other welfare conditions and privileges. But sometimes these migrations are forced because of violence and discrimination on the native country.

Ernest Ravenstein, an English geographer that is widely regarded as the earliest migration theorist, established the principal reasons ("laws") that cause migration. "Laws of Migration" (1889). Other important migration theorist is Oded Stark, he suggests that the opportunity for emigration can have the opposite effect – that is, improve the welfare of those left behind.

It's important to clarify that migration can have both positive and negative consequences on the host country as well as on the mother country.

Internal, External, Emigration, Immigration, Population transfer, Impelled migration, Step Migration, Chain, Return or circular migration and Seasonal movement, are the 10 types of migration and possible movements. Depending on the type of migration people are classify as emigrant, immigrant, refugee, internally displaced person or migration stream.

Due to its growing history and its present magnitude, governments like the United State's government, had to create immigration policies.

Unlike most migrant workers, Expatriates know what to expect in their experience abroad. Expatriates can be classified according to their working setting; 1) Parent Country Nationals: A parent-country national is a person working in a country other than their country of origin. 2) Host Country Nationals: A host-country national is an employee who is a citizen of a country in which an organization's branch or plant is located, but the organization is headquartered in another country. 3) Third Country Nationals: A third country national is an employee who is not a citizen of the home or host countries.

Expatriate failure it not very common, but sometimes it can happens due to a Culture shock.

In addition to the social and political impact that the expatriation and migratory situation has globally, an important economic impact is also held by the expatriates and migrant workers in their home country as well as the host country.

This economic impact is formed by the remittances: Remittances are the transfers of money by immigrants to their home countries. For the native country the impact is a positive one, because the "beneficiaries" (commonly the workers family), spend this money on the national market and increases consumption. The increase of consumption increases the need of companies to produce, which reflects in the need for more labor force. (Fifield & Saleh 2009) Cash transfers to families in the home country help to alleviate poverty, fuel demand for real estate and provide national economies with an additional source of foreign currency.

In the other hand, the foreign country has a money outflow.

At the end of the presentation the team asked; how will the Crisis affect developing countries in the long term? When searching for the answer to this question I read an article of Heba Saleh and Anna Fifield where they wrote; Cash transfers from nationals living abroad that boost regional economies are under threat.

I thought this affirmation while crude was very realistic; the truth is that the financial crisis that began last year in the United States has spread all over the world and has send many developed economies to recession, such as Spain. This recession means fewer jobs for migrants, so following this trend, remittance levels will obviously drop as a result of the financial deceleration.

In this post I aim to answer this question and confirm "the growing threat" by "revealing" some remittances numbers to date and some world economist analysis and government data.

(Schuman 2009) Remittances from overseas workers--small dollops of cash sent home by workers to sustain families--add up to a major source of income for tens of millions of the world's poor. The World Bank estimates remittances to developing countries totaled $305 billion in 2008, triple the amount of development aid provided to poor nations. Remittances, however, are projected to shrink at least 5% this year.

(Business and Finance 2008) Almost 10% of the Philippines' 90 million people work abroad, many having left frustrated by few economic opportunities in their corruption-riddled, impoverished homeland. The country is world's fourth-largest recipient of remittances, after China, India and Mexico.
This vital cash flow could slow, of course, if the global economic outlook continues to deteriorate and Filipino expatriate workers lose their jobs. But for now, the Southeast Asian nation appears well-positioned to ride out the current storm. Unlike some countries that are heavily dependent on remittances, the Philippines' expatriates are more likely to be filling professional roles in the fields of education and health care, which economists see as less vulnerable to layoffs during a recession.

In contrast, the World Bank said in a recent report that the slowing U.S. construction sector, which employs many migrant workers from Central and South America, was cutting the flow of remittances to many of those countries, especially Mexico. Remittances to Mexico, mostly from workers in the U.S., dropped 6.5% in the third quarter from the same period last year.
"Countries whose migrants are employed in cyclically sensitive sectors such as construction may be relatively more vulnerable to downturns," the World Bank said.

(Castillo 2009) The money Mexicans living abroad sent home fell 3 percent in February (2009) compared to the same month last year, the central bank's president said Wednesday. Even so, the drop was less than in January, when remittances were down 12 percent compared to January 2008, Guillermo Ortiz said during a news conference.
Remittances have been dropping for two reasons: the U.S. recession and a crackdown on illegal immigration that has stemmed migrant flows.
Last year was the first time remittances -- Mexico's second-largest foreign income source -- have fallen year-to-year since the bank started tracking the money 13 years ago.

(BBC 2009) Konstantin Romodanovskiy, head of the Federal Migration Service [FMS] of Russia, says that because of the crisis the number of labour migrants has fallen by 13 per cent in the first six months of this year. He described the moving of labour migration to the Far East region as a positive trend. "We have exhausted our four-month quota for migrants by 25 percent, we are using the quota sparingly, in order to provide jobs for our citizens in the time of crisis"

(Kathleen Moore 2008) The global economic downturn is likely to cut the amount of cash sent by millions of migrants worldwide to their families back home, the UN and other agencies have warned, and the impact is likely to be felt keenly in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

"A number of our countries -- Tajikistan, Moldova, for example -- have very, very high dependence on remittances," says Pradeep Mitra, the World Bank's chief economist for Europe and Central Asia. "Therefore, as the world economy slows, as we expect it will -- there will be a slowdown in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine -- the poorer countries are going to be hit because the flow of remittances is going to go down."

Finally, here are some enlightening parts and quotes of different persons taken from the article of Anna Fifield and Heba Saleh; Tide of migrant income set to fall:

With one or two exceptions, the Arab countries of the Middle East fall neatly into two categories; those that export hydrocarbons and those that export labour. While the first group now faces the threat of a prolonged period of low oil prices, the second has to grapple with the prospect of a decline in remittance flows from expatriates, whether they work in the wealthier oil-producing parts of the region or elsewhere in the world.

The World Bank expects remittance flows in the Middle East and North Africa to decline by 6.7 per cent in 2009, and to plunge even lower if the global crisis turns out to be worse than expected.

"Remittances are hugely important, not only in terms of gross domestic product, but also in terms of domestic consumption," says Simon Kitchen, economist at EFG-Hermes the private investment bank "Any drop will affect consumption. A remittance from a worker might support five people or more, and a lot of the money sent home is used to consume. If it is invested, it goes into real estate."

"Growth since 2000 has been driven by a new wave of immigrants who went to Europe and the US," says one investment banker. "These are mainly skilled people like engineers and IT specialists. But we are now seeing Moroccan investment bankers considering returning home. Everyday we see resumes sent by them."

"Remittances are important to Jordan because they help narrow the current account deficit," says Farouk Sousa, sovereign ratings director at Standard & Poor's. "The external balance, which is already weak, would be even weaker if it weren't for remittances."

"It is very difficult to assess the impact," says Nassib Ghobril, head of research at Byblos Bank. "But there are indicators that show there will be a decline, such as the slowdown in outflows from the Gulf and the US."

Bibliography

Anna Fifield, Heba Saleh. (2009, January 6). Tide of migrant income set to fall. Financial Times,11. Retrieved March 12, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1622348781).

Business and Finance. (2008, December 8). World News: Manila Banks on Its Expats. Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition), p. A.1. Retrieved March 12, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1608410891).

E EDUARDO CASTILLO. (2009, April 2). Money sent back to Mexico falls. Tulsa World,E.4. Retrieved May 2, 2009, from Business Dateline database. (Document ID: 1672416031).

James Hookway. (2008, December 8). World News: Manila Banks on Its Expats. Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition), p. A.13. Retrieved March 12, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1608410741).

Kathleen Moore. (2008, November 208).
Financial Crisis Puts Squeeze On Migrants' Remittances. Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty. Retrieved March 12, 2009, from www.rferl.org/content. (Document ID: 1351195)

Less demand for homes, cars means less remittances in 2009. (2009, April 6). The Manila Times. Retrieved May 2, 2009, from Business Dateline database. (Document ID: 1673971781).

Michael Schuman. (2009, April). On the Road Again. Time International, 173(16), 16. Retrieved May 2, 2009, from Research Library Core database. (Document ID: 1683982621).

Number of migrant workers down 13 per cent in Russia - Migration Service. (2009, May). BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union. Retrieved May 10, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry database. (Document ID: 1707855761).

Penagos, A. M. & Sierra, D. & Peñaranda, S. & Piedrahíta, M.A. 2009. Presentation "Migration and expatriates, An insight outlook" Organization and Cultures Subject, Universidad EAFIT.

Thalif Deen. (20 April). Financial crisis is threatening to claim another casualty :[Source: NoticiasFinancieras]. NoticiasFinancieras. Retrieved May 2, 2009, from NoticiasFinancieras database. (Document ID: 1682300761).

Images where taken from "Google images".