Indonesians working overseas are expected to send home 20 billion dollars over the next five years as their importance to Indonesia's economy grows, the country's labour minister said.
Manpower Minister Erman Suparno said there were 2.7 million Indonesians currently working overseas and that figure was expected to rise to 3.0 million this year.
"They give remittances of about 2.4 billion dollars per year," he said of the current workforce. "We expect within five years the cumulative remittance will be around 20 billion dollars," Suparno told AFP in an interview during a recent visit here. "Of course this will have a good economic impact on my country," he added.
The export of workers to other countries has long been an important part of Southeast and South Asian economies. In the Philippines alone, some eight million expatriates remitted a record 10.7 billion dollars to their families in 2005.
Suparno said the increase in Indonesian nationals working abroad would ease unemployment in the country and also see Indonesians eventually returning with greater expertise. "We have targeted in the future that there will be an increase of 1.0 million workers to other countries per year," Suparno said. "It is very important to us as well, because it would reduce unemployment in our country."
He said the government planned to offer support to returning workers to help them set up small businesses. "Once they return they will have sufficient knowledge and experience which could be used for small-scale entrepreneur businesses," he said. "The workers that come back after they finish their contract, the government will give a small amount of capital to start businesses."
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