PM financial advisor: Monthly remittances of foreign labors amounted to 200 million dollars

INA-  Baghdad

The financial advisor to the Prime Minister, Mazhar Muhammad Saleh, on Sunday, identified two directions in the demand for foreign labors in Iraq, and while he stressed that the presence of illegal labors constitutes two patterns of attrition, he pointed out that the monthly transfers of foreign labor amounted to 200 million dollars.

Salih said to the Iraqi News Agency (INA) that "the demand for foreign labor in the country has taken two different directions: (skilled labor), as its presence in the field of productive activity leads to maximizing the added value of the national economy as experts and consultants working in productive companies, engineering, banking and accounting sectors or in the industrial, oil, construction and construction sectors, in addition to workers in the digital technology sector and some medical joints".

He explained that" workers in those sectors play an active role in the fields of production, investment and development, and their wage payments are commensurate with productive efficiency ",noting that "foreign transfers representing their wage entitlements do not constitute a burden on the movement of the current account of the Iraqi balance of payments or the national economy, because the economic return achieved from their work exceeds the value of those transfers”.

He pointed out that" the other direction of (unskilled foreign labor), which the country is crowded with, including those who work in domestic services or in similar fields in the distribution activity ",noting that "these receive a decent cash income above what they receive in their home countries, and they are mostly a mixture of expatriates from Asia, Africa and some neighboring countries”.

He added that "the numbers of foreign workers are increasing, and most of them entered the country illegally, which contradicts the public order, and their presence constitutes two patterns of depletion, the first is the competition of National Labor on the one hand, and their production is not commensurate with the amounts of their foreign remittances, which leads to an intangible drain on the country's resources of foreign exchange remittances".
 
"The monthly remittances for foreign workers are not less than 200 million dollars, as well as their accommodation and living costs, which are similar to the amounts transferred "he added.