NextBillion.net - Development Through Enterprise - Remittance News Coverage Missing the Mark - Comments

Japan's Economy and Currency

Anna Coulling — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 14:24:21 -0400

As a full time currency trader in the UK, I thought I would add my comment to your post and in particular with regard to the Yen, the US dollar and the Japanese economy. In simple terms I believe there are several things to remember when considering the dollar yen or investing in yen assets. Firstly, the economy is unlike any other in the western world. It is highly dependent on its export markets which in turn are highly dependent on the strength or weakness of the yen. This in turn affects the speculation on the yen and in particular the carry trade which has been a favourite for many years due to the very low interest rates. This is likely to continue for some time to come and my own personal view is that the rates may be cut later this year back to 0.25%. Now bear in mind that a strong yen will adversely affect exports, and the interventionist Bank of Japan will ensure that this does not continue. In short, a recipe for a weak yen to dollar relationship for the foreseeable future. My personal view is that the pair will bounce back from below the psychological 100 barrier, back to somewhere between 105 and 110 in the short to medium term.

Thamel.com - Diaspora-enabled Development

Joshi, Granger & Koch — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 16:31:24 -0500

Your WRI case study "What Works: Thamel.com - Diaspora-enabled Development" illustrates how remittances have created real economic development and infrastructure improvement in Nepal. When banks, businesses and policy makers create a platform where diaspora can direct, manage and "productize" their remittances, new homeland jobs are created, people get benefit from entering the formal banking systems and more local investments are made. We know this is true because we are doing it...and we believe that these "best practices" can be applied around the world. Bal K. Joshi Co-founder, Thamel Dot Com & Thamel International Robert Granger & Daniel Koch Partners, Thamel International www.thamelintl.com

Remittance News Coverage Missing the Mark

williamkramer — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 12:45:59 -0500

I came in today thinking, "wow, what a range of takes on the new World Bank study (pdf) on Latin American remittances released yesterday." We reported last week on the IADB remittance report and the reaction from CNN and Lou Dobbs, in which an immigration and values debate provided the frame for a fundamentally fact-based study of remittances volume. The same thing is happening with the World Bank study. Both FT and Wall Street Journal have published articles in the past 24 hours. The Financial Times emphasizes the negative parts of what is essentially a mildly positive study by the World Bank - namely that remittances aren't 'manna from heaven' nor a substitute for sound macro- and micro-economic policies in the recipient countries. The Wall Street Journal takes the negative impacts downstream, and with their usual good reporting, talk a lot about economic dependency and crime that, they suggest, are results of remittances.

In my view, these press reports are serving to cloud, not clarify the issues. Remittances are not the cause of economic migration, brain drain, economic dependency, or crime. All these predated remittances, and the press is setting up straw men to knock down. Nobody I know of is claiming that remittances are a panacea or cure-all, only that they exist, they are large, they are important both to the senders and recipients, and they have development potential that is under-explored.

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