EXTERNAL MIGRATION IS NATURAL FOR ARMENIA
Aysor
Oct 27 2009
Armenia
"There is a view that migration is a move from developing countries to
Europe, North America and Australia while most moves appear within a
country, not between the countries," said deputy chief of the Migration
Agency of Armenia Irina Davtyan at UN Human Development reporting.
Various estimates show 740 million internal migrants, it is four times
more than number of international migrants. Only third (it’s about 70
million) moves from developing countries to developed states. Poor
people from poor countries have the least move index, for example,
only 1 per cent of African population has moved to Europe.
Irina Davtyan said that external migration and emigration are natural
for Armenia. For about 1 million people emigrated from Armenia over
past 20 years. It is a third of population. 2/3 of migrants choose
Russia; about 9% of them move to CIS-countries, and 15% to Europe and
10% to United States. "The emigration is caused mainly by social and
economic reasons."
The volume of remittances to Armenia was annually about $ 2 billion
(20% of GDP) before crisis. Studies show that 80-85% of financial
proceeds are spent on operating costs, while the rest of them (about
$400 million annually) mostly kept at home.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
