D-8 SG to Talk Over the Importance of Migrant Workers’ Remittance at the APEC Seminar

Jakarta, Indonesia | October 29, 2008 by D-8 Secretariat

Ahmed Vaizu, who lives in the western Swedish city of Gothenburg, was unable to complete a bank transaction because he had an Islamic name. Vaizu went online to transfer money from his bank account in order to purchase spare parts from Germany. When Vaizu was filling out his name on the Internet form, Skandia bank gave a rejection alert. When he called his bank to inquire about the rejection, he was told, there were blocks on names that sounded Muslim and Ahmet belonged to the blocked names list, so his international transaction was automatically blocked. Speaking to SVD newspaper, Vaizu said, “I thought this sort of thing would only happen in countries that were afraid of terror, not my Swedish bank.” Vaizu was able to complete his transaction after he removed the name Ahmed from the online form. After the incident, Vaizu applied to the country’s ethnic discrimination ombudsman. “I have spent half my life in Sweden. I work as an electrician. I live like a normal Swede. I have never felt this discriminated against,” he said. Skandia Banker’s information chief, Lina Hök, said, “The bank just follows the EU validation list. We have to follow the same rules as other banks.” Hök expressed satisfaction with Vaizu’s decision to report the bank to the ombudsman. “We will be able to understand our limits better. It will be good for the ombudsman to give us concrete directives.”

If this a case in migrant workers’ remittances, how many thousands of Ahmeds working overseas would have same unfortunate treatment?

D-8 Secretary General, Dipo Alam, is scheduled to cover and lead discussion on that issue in the APEC Seminar theming “Securing Remittance and Cross Border Payment form Terrorist Use” in Jakarta, Indonesia, on 22-23 October 2008.

According to the D-8 records, Bangladeshi expatriates sent home a record 3.32 billion U.S. dollars in the first seven months of the current fiscal year, marking a 29 percent growth over the same period of the last fiscal year according to the central bank.

Of the total remittance inflow into the country, the highest amount, or 29 percent, came from Saudi Arabia last fiscal. The non-resident Bangladeshis (NRBs) from Saudi Arabia sent US$ 1734.7 million in the 2006-07 fiscal compared to $ 1562.21 million in the 2005-06 fiscal, registering 11 percent growth, according to Bangladesh Bank’s country-wise remittance inflow statistics.

Sources in the banking sector said the private commercial banks (PCBs) also came forward to take proper measures to increase their earnings from remittance services. Sonali Bank, Agrani Bank, Pubali Bank and Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd are the major players handling these remittance inflow. The NRBs send roughly $ 7 billion every year and a significant amount of the total amount still comes through ‘hundi’, a shady way of money transfer which is gradually have been eliminated by a more encouraging measures from Bangladesh banks.

The other D-8 member state, Turkey, has around 5.6% of Turkey’s population is living abroad with most (i.e: 88%), in Europe. Remittances to Turkey hit nearly $1 billion in 2005, according to data from the Turkish Central Bank.

D-8 countries, with their 930 millions people, are countries whose large populations are working abroad as migrant workers. Their money/remittances send to their families (parts of $ 251billions remittances in 2007) have proven to reduce poverty and also contribute significantly to the economy of the countries.

However, recently these migrant workers’ remittances are being potentially suspected by some international banks’ policies that discriminated simply because they are Muslims/or have Muslims names, and connect to the misuse issues of financial for terrorism. Therefore in this opportunity at the APEC Seminar, D-8 Organization - standing side by side with other international organization such as APEC, IDB, and OIC - plan to discuss thoroughly the issue, and will seek better way to cooperate together to avoid moslem migrant workers being suspected exageratively and treated discriminatively.

D-8 Secretariat has been taking a concentrated initiative to set up a D-8 working group on remittance issue since last year to help member countries to better route this potential remittance for the development of the D-8 member countries. Secretariat had contacted some participants who attended International Meeting on Migrant Workers in Brussels, Belgium, to work with D-8 Organization on ideas to set up a Working Group on Migrant Workers and Remittances. This would also include cooperation of international organization such as ADB, World Bank and IMF.

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