Migration and Trade: The Case of the Philippines

Abstract

Can expanded exports of both goods and people accelerate economic development, and thus eventually reduce the desire to migrate for employ? ment? A conference in Manila on June 24, 1993 investigated the extent to which exports and emigrants can help the Philippines to achieve its goal of being a Newly Industrialized Country (NIC) by the year 2000. First wave NICs?Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan? made the transition from net emigration to net immigration areas during the 1980s. If the Philippines could join the ranks of the NICs soon after 2000, and also go through a migration transition, then Asia's major labor exporter?which today sends abroad about 600,000 workers annually? could join the NICs as a labor importer. Conference participants concluded that the Philippines finally has em? braced the marketand export-oriented policies that are necessary for the country to achieve its ambitious economic goals. These goals include an annual GNP growth rate of 10 percent or more (versus 1% in 1992); an average real per capita income of $1,200 (versus $740 in 1991); and no more than 30 percent of the population in poverty (versus 50% in 1992). However, there was no agreement on whether the exit of the equivalent of the country's annual work force growth and their $3 billion annual remittances would accelerate or slow the attainment of Philippine 2000 goals. Three themes were highlighted in the discussion. First, the Philippines has a history of being unable to achieve its economic goals, so there was perhaps understandable cynicism that the government will once again be unable to create the agribusiness jobs in rural areas and the labor-intensive manufacturing jobs in urban areas that it aims for in order to make rural-urban migration and emigration unnecessary. Second, even though