Jairo Espinosa
Tue, 30 Oct 2001 01:09:41 -0800
Tomado de IEEE Spectrum-Octubre 2001, el artículo menciona "Colombian Network of Researchers and Engineers Abroad ".
Emerging markets need not ignore the resources and contributions of their
expatriates
When the Best Brains Go Abroad
By Janamitra Devan & Parth S. Tewari, McKinsey & Co.
Consider a few statistics. In the 1990s, roughly 650 000 people from
emerging markets migrated to the United States on professional-employment
visas. Over 40 percent of the foreign-born adults in the United States have
at least some college education, thereby making that country the epicenter
of the global talent drain. In fact, foreign-born workers now make up 20
percent of all employees in the U.S. information technology sector.
In one country alone, about 30 percent of the 1998 graduating class of the
famed Indian Institute of Technology--and a staggering 80 percent of the
graduates in computer science--headed for graduate schools or jobs in the
United States. Some 80 percent of foreign doctoral students in science and
engineering plan to stay there after graduation--up from 50 percent in 1985.
Around the world, approximately a third of the R&D professionals of
developing countries have left them to work in the United States, in member
countries of the European Union, or in Japan.
As the war for talent heats up, this flow of the best and the brightest from
developing countries is likely to increase. Singapore is recruiting in
China, India, and Malaysia to fill positions in information technology.
Japan forecasts that it will have to import at least 30 000 high-technology
workers over the next five years. The United States has nearly doubled the
annual quota of temporary work visas for foreign professionals--to 195 000,
from 115 000.
For most countries, tackling the fundamental causes of the talent drain
will take years. Comprehensive economic reform is required to increase
competition and level the playing field, to strengthen financial systems,
and to streamline regulatory requirements.
Taiwan is a rare exception: its long commitment to building a
market-oriented economy--coupled with initiatives such as the creation of a
venture capital industry and investments in research and education--has
prompted many expatriates to return. The Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial
Park is a key attraction: Silicon Valley returnees started more than half of
the companies there, and it now accounts for roughly 10 percent of Taiwan's
gross national product.
Other nations are attracting expatriate support as well. In 1999, 70 percent
of China's US $50 billion in foreign direct investment came from Chinese
people abroad. It has been reported that Indian engineers in Silicon Valley
are behind many of the investments that Silicon Valley companies have made
in high-tech firms based in the Indian cities of Bangalore and Hyderabad.
Nonresident Indians have deposited $5.5 billion with the State Bank of
India, adding to their home country's investment capital. And emigrants from
many nations have started venture capital funds in their native lands,
thereby providing financial resources and furthering the development of the
financial sector.
As these cases illustrate, governments should not view emigrants as entirely
lost resources. By harnessing emigrants' technical and business skills,
commercial relationships, and financial capital, governments can encourage
their participation in the economic development of their home countries.
What may be gained are important contributions in foreign direct investment,
venture funding, financial investments, and commercial and educational
exchanges.
Overseas Indians, for example, have advised the Indian government on issues
ranging from crafting venture capital laws to deregulating the country's
telecommunications sector. Emigrants have also provided financing for
India's elite engineering schools. Other emigrants have set up business
internships and educational exchanges to bring residents of the home country
to the adopted one, although this approach has at least one disadvantage: it
can encourage more emigration.
Yet most developing nations have done little to leverage their expatriate
talent.
Leveraging the diaspora
To take advantage of the knowledge and capital of the diaspora, emerging
markets need to develop plans for attracting expatriate support, much as
universities tap their alumni and as not-for-profit organizations develop
relationships with large donors. Such a plan has three elements: the
creation of networks of emigrants, an infrastructure that enables them to
exchange information easily with people in the home country, and targeted
incentives that generate productive business investments there.
Create emigrant networks. Emerging markets must encourage the formation of
networks of emigrants. The story of one small village in the Philippines
illustrates that point. Pozorrubio is the home of one of the country's
highest concentrations of emigrant workers, and remittances to the families
left behind are substantial. But for years, most of the money went for
children's education or consumer goods, with little used for lasting
business or community investments, a common problem with remittances.
Noli Venezuela, a former mayor, decided to remedy that drawback. He
organized groups of U.S. Pozorrubians and encouraged them to make collective
investments in their former village. Touring the United States, he
established local emigrant communities in five major cities. The groups that
he helped found have since paid for a village square, streetlights, hospital
equipment and medical supplies, schoolbooks, and more. The emigrants explain
that their contributions reflect their civic sense and make them feel
important.
Going a step further, an expatriate network built around a particular
professional field might have a far greater impact. Such professional
networks, formed to generate business investments in the home country, also
make it easier for business leaders in the home country to tap specific
skills abroad. A hospital in an emerging economy, for example, might get in
touch with a network of overseas doctors to recruit them for short teaching
stints. Many professional networks already exist: the Colombian Network of
Researchers and Engineers Abroad and the Silicon Valley Indian Professionals
Association, to name two. The task ahead is for policymakers to start using
the knowledge, contacts, and capital of these groups.
Facilitate contacts. Communication is the key ingredient in gaining
expatriate support. Thanks to the Internet, leaders in the home country and
emigrants can instantly and cheaply share information. One type of useful
Web site maintains a roster of expatriates. The South African Network of
Skills Abroad (Sansa), for example, has created a database that matches
skill shortages in South Africa with the overseas locations of
concentrations of expatriates who have those skills. One Sansa database
tracks 21 000 university graduates who have moved abroad.
Another Web site example is Thailand's Reverse Brain Drain project (RBD). It
gives expatriates who want to invest in their home countries information
about investment incentives, business and residence regulations, local
businesses seeking foreign joint-venture partners, and targeted investment
opportunities.
Target incentives. Governments also need to be much more innovative about
the incentives and mechanisms they offer. For instance, both the home
country's people and the emigrants benefit when emigrants (and other
foreigners) are allowed to maintain foreign-currency deposits in the home
country. More importantly, laws should be streamlined to protect these
deposits and to allow for their withdrawal in the same currency. Unlike
remittances, these savings can be funneled directly into productive business
investments through bank loans. They also provide an incentive for reverse
immigration, especially in retirement.
Incentives modeled on those that have proved effective in luring
multinational corporations are also useful. Successful enticements have
included reducing corporate tax rates to levels at or below competitive
international levels, removing restrictions on the repatriation of profits,
and eliminating unneeded licensing requirements. Fiscal-incentive systems
should be transparent, applied automatically to all eligible investors, and
nondiscretionary, though many countries resist offering nondiscretionary
incentives because their fiscal impact may exceed the budget allotment.
Countries that offer discretionary incentives must ensure fairness by
creating clear and explicit rules about how investments are judged, as well
as appropriate checks and balances.
Policymakers should also consider nonfiscal incentives that take advantage
of the desire of emigrants to be seen supporting their homelands. These
might include high-profile awards that publicize the emigrants'
contributions and investments. One award might recognize investment dollars,
for example; another, jobs created. For many successful expatriates, honors
of this kind can be a prime motivator.
An effort that shows how to pull some of these incentives together is
Thailand's RBD (Reverse Brain Drain) project. RBD was created to spark the
country's nascent R&D sector by encouraging research involving Thai
scientists and their counterparts abroad. With a budget of $48.5 million
from the Thai government, the RBD gives outright grants and tax incentives
to foreign-local research collaborations that benefit Thai industry. Besides
financing projects that range from pharmaceutical compounds to new
technologies for freezing cooked rice, the RBD has recruited expatriates to
staff the projects, giving them the opportunity to work in their home
countries.
Still another opportunity for investment is to give local businesses and
other organizations incentives to use the expatriates' knowledge and talent.
For example, a "talent" tax credit, similar to investment tax credits, might
apply to local companies that employed expatriate workers. Schools and
universities might be eligible for outright grants if they brought in
expatriate professionals for short teaching assignments. Or special tax and
regulatory breaks might apply to businesses that entered into joint ventures
with foreign companies owned by expatriates.
While a strategy for leveraging the talent and resources of emigrants is
important, it is definitely no substitute for economic reforms that address
the fundamental causes of the talent drain by promoting competition,
encouraging entrepreneurs, raising levels of investment capital, and
lightening regulatory requirements in the home country. Still, a development
strategy that, besides promoting all these much-needed goals, encourages the
participation of emigrants in the economic development of their home
countries can mitigate the effects of today's brain drain. Instead of being
unambiguous losers in the global war for talent, emerging markets may find
that they can be winners, after all.
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