‘Migration a key driver of global economy’ - 25.01.2013 |25 January 2013
‘Migration a key driver of global economy’ - 25.01.2013
Migration is one of the main drivers of the global economy as it contributes significantly to transfer of skills, capacity-building and technology, besides filling labour gaps.
Mr Loustau-Lalanne addressing guests and delegates at the launch of the workshop yesterday
Ambassador Maurice Loustau-Lalanne made this remark while launching a workshop focusing on migration and development planning though migration profiles in the south-west Indian Ocean region.
The one-day seminar, held at Care House in Victoria yesterday, has been organised by the Geneva-based inter-government body Organisation for Migration (IMO).
It was attended by representatives of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the departments of Immigration, Environment and Culture as well as non-governmental bodies, such as the National Council for Children (NCC) and the Seychelles Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI).
Noting that one billion people in the world are migrants, Mr Loustau-Lalanne said that migration contributes significantly to transfer of skills, capacity-building and technology, besides filling labour gaps.
Mr Loustau-Lalanne said many countries also earn revenue in rather a big way through remittances sent by their citizens working in other countries.
He said that the IMO is already helping a number of countries, including Seychelles, to formulate evidence-based policies on migration.
Mr Loustau-Lalanne said that Seychelles is a member state of the IMO since December 2011 and it is pleased that through dialogue, it has rapidly identified and developed an important IMO project covering the country.
He noted that Seychelles is already benefiting from the IMO in obtaining biometric passport readers and other related equipment. This is in line with immigration requirements of the European Union (EU), our main tourism market.
The acting head of the IMO office in Mauritius, Leyla Tegmo-Reddy, said the organisation has 149 states as members, with 12 others holding observer status. It has offices in over 100 countries, where 7,800 staff are working on more than 2,700 projects globally.
She said that the project being launched in Seychelles also covers Mauritius and the Comoros. She added that IMO will support the three Indian Ocean Commission (IOC) member states to develop national immigration profiles.