The Serbian diaspora in Switzerland is one of the largest foreign
populations in the country. The migration of Serbian nationals to
Switzerland is largely rooted in Swiss labour migration policies of
the 1960s, 70s and 80s when short-term “guest worker”
permits were offered to thousands of Serbian nationals.



Over the years, increasing economic hardship remained the key
factor motivating Serbian men and women to migrate to Switzerland,
and ultimately to remain there permanently. By the time the Swiss
government phased out the seasonal guest-worker programme in the
1990s, a large Serbian population had established permanent
residency in Switzerland, a status which allowed for family
reunification, resulting in the present-day Serbian diaspora of
approximately 200,000 people.



This labour migration has had both positive and negative effects on
migrant sending households and communities in Serbia, according to
a recently published IOM report.



On the one hand, migration to Switzerland has contributed to a
significant depletion of the working-age population in many
migrant-sending communities and has left behind many households
mostly composed of children and elderly people who are increasingly
unable of meeting their daily economic needs through traditional
agricultural activities because of the absence of working-age
relatives.

At the same time, the report clearly establishes that
long-standing transnational relationships between these households
and their migrant relatives in Switzerland have facilitated the
flow of remittances and other forms of material support, which
today play an important role in poverty alleviation, especially
among older, rural households with low levels of education and an
income of less than 1,000 Swiss francs per month.

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Data collected by IOM among 343 households in Petrovac na Mlavi
and Cuprija, two rural migrant-sending regions of Central and
Eastern Serbia, finds that remittances sent by the Serbian diaspora
in Switzerland contribute mainly to the acquisition of housing or
are used to support recurring living costs and basic needs such as
water, electricity, gas, food, medicine, healthcare and, to a
lesser extent, children’s education. About 8 per cent of
respondents said they invested part of their remittances in small
to medium-sized enterprises.

At the micro-economic level, the impact of remittance flows to
rural Serbia is confirmed by the fact that more than 90 per cent of
the surveyed households receive remittances, which on average total
CHF 4,800 per year. The report shows that households also receive
goods such as household equipment, mobile phones and televisions,
as well as machinery for agricultural activities.



Remittances, which can account for 40 per cent of household income,
are mostly sent informally on a monthly basis. They are either
hand-carried by migrants, friends or acquaintances or sent via a
vast network of bus drivers who shuttle between Switzerland and
Serbia on a daily basis.

According to the report, the use of informal channels can be
explained by a lack of trust in Serbian financial institutions and
by high remitting costs. To increase the flow of remittances
through formal channels, the report underlines the need to reduce
remitting costs. This could be done by setting up new partnerships
between financial service providers in Switzerland and Serbia, by
improving banking provisions to bring more people into the formal
banking system and by setting up special savings to encourage
investments in small to medium-sized enterprises to create
employment in Serbia and help the country retain its skilled young
professionals.

Other measures, including new banking policies and financial
legislation that allow expatriates to hold foreign currency
accounts in Serbian banks could further encourage expatriates to
invest remittances in enterprises that would benefit Serbia’s
poorer regions.

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The report notes that the impact of collective donations from
migrant associations in Switzerland remains limited. At a local
level, donations can make a big difference, as illustrated by the
building of a school for special needs children in the municipality
of Petrovac na Mlavi, which was funded by Serbian expatriates
living in the north-eastern city of St. Gallen.



Measures to back efforts by the Serbian Ministry for Diaspora to
encourage collective donations from migrant associations in
Switzerland that wish to support community infrastructures, such as
roads, water systems or schools for special needs children should
be encouraged. Other measures, such as setting up of matching fund
schemes should also be encouraged.



Remittances from Switzerland are part of larger flows estimated by
the International Monetary Fund in 2004 to have reached USD 4.1
billion, or 17 per cent of Serbia’s GDP, placing Serbia in
the top 11 remittance-receiving countries in the world.

This survey, which was funded by the
Swiss Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) is one of a
three-part investigation of migration and remittances linking
Switzerland to Serbia carried out by IOM, the Swiss Forum for
Migration and Population Studies (SFM) and the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The full survey is available
at "http://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/shared/shared/mainsite/published_docs/mrs28.pdf"
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