Past Event

Join us for a virtual lecture on “The Impact of the War in Ukraine on Migrant Remittance Flows to Central Asia: The Case of the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan.” The lecture will be given by Dr. Anastasia Blouchoutzi, Assistant Professor, Department of International and European Studies, School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece.

DATE: Thursday, June 15th

TIME: 6:00PM-7:30PM

LOCATION: Zoom

Registration is required. Please register using the form below. The Zoom link will be sent to you upon registering.

About the Event:

The economies of two small Central Asian states, the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan, are dependent on the remittances their migrant workers send back to their families. The Russian Federation is the main destination country of Kyrgyz and Tajik migrant workers, where they fill job vacancies in the construction, commerce and the service sector. Remittances, the size of which exceeded 30% of these countries’ GDP in 2021, have been a channel to transmit economic growth from the Russian Federation. However, through the migration-remittances corridor, the Russian economic crises affected negatively their macroeconomic indicators. In this context, the initial forecasts of international organizations on the impact of the war in Ukraine on the remittances towards the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan were unfavorable. As a result of the resilience of the Russian economy though, financial flows towards the two countries haven’t decreased so far. Drawing upon the importance of migrant remittances for developing countries and the interdependence of the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan with the Russian Federation due to labor migration, the author highlights the effects the Russian economic crises had on remittances to the two small Central Asian states and identifies whether there are similarities and/or differences with the current impact, due to the war in Ukraine.

About the Speaker:

Anastasia Blouchoutzi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International and European Studies at the University of Macedonia. Dr. Blouchoutzi holds a BA in International and European Studies, an MSc in International Economics and a PhD in the Economics of International Migration. Her research interests include the Economics of International Migration, Labour Economics, Migration and Integration Policies. Anastasia teaches relevant courses in undergraduate and postgraduate level. She has published in international peer-reviewed journals and has participated in international peer-reviewed conferences about issues related to the abovementioned research fields. Anastasia has considerable research and project management experience in various Greek and EU-funded projects. She is currently participating in the research team of a “Horizon 2020” project which focuses on migration and asylum crises and a project funded by the “Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation” examining the tendencies of Diaspora towards Greece.