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Migrant worker takes over editor's chair!
Arecent paper by the UN Pop-ulation Division advises that some
developed countries will have to start accepting larger numbers
of immigrants to maintain current standards of living. Dec-lining
birth rates threaten the income tax-base - and the pensions that
workforces in those countries count on for retirement.
These ideas were raised by Population Division Director Joseph Chamie
at the latest session of the UN Commission on Pop-ulation and Development,
which met in New York last month. "For Japan and the countries
of Europe, low fertility, combined with low mortality and increased
longevity, [is] resulting in smaller and older populations,"
read a UN statement summarizing Chamie's remarks.
In the next 50 years, the paper argues, the only alternative Europe
and Japan have to population decline - and consequently an inability
to support their aged populations - is "replacement migration"
of young people from developing countries. The US, whose population
is growing, has less to worry about, although population and re-source
allocation must concern everyone.
The paper follows up on ideas discussed at the 1994 Cairo conference.
Critics have objected to the Population Division's "one-dimensional
approach," which advocates replacement migration for developed
countries "while not considering the negative effects of an
exodus - or 'brain drain' - of working-age populations on developing
countries."
Even so, the implications of the paper have caught the attention
of the European media. On April 22, the BBC World Ser-vice aired
a discussion about labor migration and its possible consequences.
Western European industry already employs immigrant labor from Eastern
Europe, the Mid-dle East, Asia and Africa. However, as one guest
on the program suggested, the formation of an info-tech economy
could leave Europe with a huge pool of low-skilled labor - and little
use for it. A more efficient strategy, argued another guest, is
to free capital rather than labor, thus allowing jobs to come to
would-be migrants.
AmCham Egypt's annual Doorknock mission aims to help bring US capital
to Egypt. And undoubtedly, most members of last month's delegation
look forward to a US-Egypt free trade agreement.
The only countries that actually have such agreements now are Canada,
Mexico and Israel. Free trade - simple in theory - is complex in
practice, and cannot be separated from politics. In this edition,
we look at Qualifying Industrial Zones - which al-low Arab "peace
partners" to take advantage of Israel's FTA - and Egypt's reluctance
to use them.
Political sensitivities differ from country to country, but they're
always present. Canada - the United States' first FTA partner -
didn't enter the pact without serious soul-searching. And Mexico's
entrance, creating the North American Free Trade Ag-reement (NAFTA)
in 1994, seemed to con-firm the worst fears of free-trade bashers.
We feared that jobs would migrate south of the US border, and young
job-seekers in Canada - as I was at the time - were infuriated that
NAFTA freed capital but not labor. To work in the States, I would
have to apply for a green card like any other foreigner. Plus, many
Canadians couldn't forget that in the nineteenth century, America
actively plotted our annexation - in 1812, the US even invaded us.
This is my first appearance at Business Monthly, so I had to say
something about myself. I wondered if people here at Am-Cham would
think it strange to have a Canadian editing the American Chamber's
journal. So far, no one seems to mind. I talk a bit like an American,
and two years of journalism in Cairo have taught me to write like
one, too. If anyone questions me about my nationality, maybe I can
say I came with the NAFTA deal.
Neil MacDonald
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