MANILA, Oct 27: The number of illegal immigrants worldwide may spike if governments restrict visas in response to the global financial crisis, experts at a UN-backed forum said on Monday.

“Our fear is that those numbers will increase,” Sharan Burrow, president of the International Trade Union Confederation, said at the opening of a four-day migration forum in Manila.

“We will risk seeing that number grow rather than reduce if the financial crisis (constrains)... legitimate avenues for regular migration,” she said.

The number of migrants in the world is now estimated to be 40 million, 25 per cent of whom are illegal, with the United States having the most migrants, according to Burrow.

With many migrants seeking to escape harsh economic realities at home to work abroad, Burrow urged governments to “think carefully” before closing their doors to legal movements of migrant workers.

Restrictions on labour migration will “deprive developed countries of badly needed manpower in certain areas and constrict rather than expand growth potential,” she said.

“In addition, the restriction on migration will affect remittances on which some economies have become dependent,” she said, adding that countries such as the Philippines, Moldova and Jordan rely heavily on migrant labour to prop up their economies.Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, chairman and chief executive of Philippine conglomerate Ayala Corp. said the business sector had benefited from remittances from migrant workers.

“Workers’ remittances have strengthened our banking system and spurred local consumption,” he said, noting that his firm’s telecoms and property businesses have seen their sales rise largely due to migrants and their families here.

He said there was a need to protect migrants, and warned that the financial crisis could lead to an “era of protectionism and extreme nationalism” that could degenerate into racial intolerance.

“Any downturn in the (world’s) important economies will result in dislocations which will reverberate throughout the world and will impact the lives of migrants,” he said.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is expected to join the delegates from more than 60 countries on Wednesday, organisers said.—AFP