KATHMANDU, Feb 13: In view of the impending influx of Nepali migrant workers returning home due to the ongoing global financial crisis, Nepal has asked the international community to help it cope with the possible adverse impact. [break]
The government made a formal appeal in this regard Friday after envoys based at Nepali missions abroad said that massive cuts in jobs in major employer countries were on the anvil due to the global recession, and Nepal could face large-scale return of such workers.
“We are very concerned about the gloomy situation in the major host countries. We have to be ready to face the problems in case of return of Nepali workers due to job losses. So we ask the international community to help us deal with the problems arising from the financial crisis,” said Gyanchandra Acharya, secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Friday, the last day of a two-day seminar in the capital on ‘Global Recession and Its Impact on the Foreign Employment of Nepal’.
Senior Nepali diplomats based in Malaysia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Israel and South Korea had spoken about the impact of the global downturn on those countries and the possible impact on Nepali migrant workers there.
Most Nepali mission chiefs on Thursday painted a discouraging picture of Nepal’s foreign employment prospects amid the economic slowdown in the labor-recipient countries.
Secretary Acharya said Nepal was preparing to formulate short-, mid- and long-term strategic plans to cope with the problems arising in Nepal´s foreign employment sector, which contributes more than 17 percent to the Gross Domestic Product.
“The international community should lend us a helping hand as mitigating the impact of the crisis is beyond our capacity,” added Acharya.
He said a high-level mechanism will be established with the involvement of government officials, officials at Nepali missions abroad and representatives from organizations concerned to monitor the impact of the financial crisis on overseas jobs and the implications for the Nepali economy.
Representatives of multinational agencies have assured Nepal of support to deal with the problem.
Hisanobu Shishido, a senior economist at the World Bank, spoke of the increasing threat to remittances in Nepal and other South Asian countries due to deminishing prospects for overseas employment.
“The government should provide incentives to increase private sector investment to create domestic jobs amid global recession and growing loss of overseas jobs,” said Shishido.
He assured Nepali officials of necessary support from the World Bank to face the adverse job situation created by the global economic meltdown.
“We are monitoring the situation and will come up with a report on the impact on migrant workers from the crisis, before ascertaining ways of our support to Nepal to mitigate the impact,” he further said.
Sarat Das, chief of mission of the International Organization of Migration (IOM), suggested that the Nepal government formulate a concrete contingency plan to cope with the adverse impact on the foreign employment sector.
