Migrants in Japan a growing aid source
International Herald Tribune, July 30
...thousands of foreigners who have migrated to Japan in the past decade and turned this country into an unexpected source of remittances. Payments sent home by foreign workers here now surpass Tokyo's foreign aid budget... aid officials have come to view remittances as an important development tool. While foreigners account for less than 1.5 percent of a national work force of 53 million, Japan has nonetheless emerged as a significant source of remittances.
Japan is also the world's second-largest foreign-aid donor, after the United States. In the year that ended on March 31, it dispensed ¥857.8 billion in official development aid.
By some estimates, foreign workers in Japan annually remit more than that to their home countries. This is money that goes directly into "the pockets of poor people," Enrique Iglesias, president of the Inter-American Development Bank, said on a recent visit to Tokyo. ...