However, the dispatching countries, such as those in the Middle East, are noticing this drain of billions of dollars. One country’s gain is another country’s loss.

Foreign workers in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have drained more than $200 billion from local economies over the past seven years, according to Nadin Kawach, journalist of Abu Dhabi.

These foreign workers remitted much of their money back to their families in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Libya, Philippines, and others.

The funds transferred from 2001 to 2007 were much higher than the remittances of about $140 billion during the previous seven-year period, an indication of the growing number of expatriates in the oil-rich region.

Over the past seven years, the total funds transferred by more than 12 million foreigners in the GCC were estimated at about $201.2 billion. Nearly 70 percent of the funds were remitted from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The surge in crude oil prices since the 1990s saw large surpluses in the GCC over the past years.

Sen. Loren Legarda urges the government to get sovereign fund investments from the cash-rich Mideast. "The government should clearly send the appropriate signals that sovereign wealth fund investments from the Middle East are absolutely welcome here."

The senator said the country desperately needs direct and productive investments to effectively address massive unemployment.

"If we look closely at our employment situation, despite our 7 to 8 percent annual economic growth rate, we still have the third-highest jobless rate in Asia, after Indonesia and India."

Based on the results of the latest Labor Force Survey, 2,261,700 able-bodied Filipinos were totally jobless as of October 2007. This represents 6.3 percent of the country’s 35.9-million labor force.

The survey also showed that of the 33,638,300 Filipinos that were considered "employed" as of October, 18.1 percent or 6,088,532 were actually underemployed, illegally underpaid, or actively looking for extra work.

The government should specifically target Mideast investments in labor-intensive infrastructure and manufacturing projects. "If we do this right, we can easily lure billions of dollars worth of fresh investments from sovereign wealth funds," Legarda said.

Sovereign wealth funds from Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – three of the world’s largest oil producers – have become a huge source of fresh capital for US financial institutions that have been hit hard by the subprime home loan crisis.

The US banking giant Citigroup Inc., for instance, recently obtained new capital from the state-run Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.