Rich countries have always imported labour from poorer ones. In the days of the British Empire, the British imported Tamils and Chinese to work on the plantations and mines of Malaya and Ceylon, Indians to build railways in east Africa and to cut sugar in South Africa. Chinese workers contributed massively to the railroads of the western USA. In the 1960, South Korea began to send coal miners and later nurses to (West) Germany. South Vietnam during the American occupation was another huge labour market for projects out of the firing line. The difference today is not of kind, but of scale and direction. The big Arab oil exporters have grand developmental ambitions but small populations—even Iraq has only 17m people. Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan have needed massive labour forces to continue their rapid economic growth.
Pakistani workers abroad sent home more than $16 billion in the ten years to the end of 1986. In 1983 Bengalis working overseas sent back $610m, which is equal to 80% of Bangladesh's merchandise exports and one-quarter of its imports. Filipinos in the same year returned to the Philippines around $950m, which was 3.5% of the GDP. These figures do not include the flourishing black markets and informal arrangements which bypass banking procedures. In 1991, Cuban, Vietnamese and Mozambican guest workers in former East Germany have become the subject of neo-nazi hatred.