A two-day meeting bringing together senior labour migration
officials from ten Colombo Process countries and European Union
(EU) member states opens today in Brussels.

The meeting, organized under a European Commission (EC) funded
programme to facilitate labour migration between Asia and Europe,
aims to further the understanding of labour migration dynamics
between the two regions.

Participants will also assess current and future labour market
trends, challenges and opportunities in relation to these regions
and consider how these developments will influence their migration
policies and practices.

Although migration flows from Asian countries to the EU have so
far been relatively low compared to other source regions such as
Eastern Europe and Africa, Asia-EU migration patterns in recent
years have increased and diversified, with China becoming one of
the key emerging source countries of Asian migration to the EU, in
addition to the Philippines and the Indian sub-continent
countries.

On the EU side, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom (UK) have
also become important destination countries of Asian migrants
entering legally or illegally into the EU. Emerging labour
migration routes from Asia to some of the new EU countries, such as
the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania, will also be
discussed.

"This meeting is all about finding ways to effectively manage
labour migration between both regions to ensure migrants and
countries of destination and origin can benefit from it," says
Bernd Hemingway, IOM’s Regional Representative to the
European Union and Belgium.

Later today, high-level representatives from the EC will present
the latest EU policy developments relating to labour migration,
including circular migration.

The Colombo Process (www.colomboprocess.org) is a regional
consultative process on labour migration issues, set up by IOM in
2003 at the request of a number of Asian labour-sending
countries.

The Colombo Process countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China,
India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Viet Nam, Thailand,
and Sri Lanka) regularly meet at ministerial and senior official
level to share best practices on overseas worker policies and
practices.

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark,
Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland,
Romania, Slovenia, Spain and the UK are taking part in this
meeting, countries that are currently experiencing significant
migration flows or interests vis-à-vis labour migration from
Asia.

For more information, please contact:

Aiko Kikkawa

IOM Brussels

Tel: +32 2 282 45 60

E-mail: "mailto:akikkawa@iom.int" target="_blank" title=
"">akikkawa@iom.int