mr.sumo snr. wrote:

> BTW does anyone know the primary method by which Brazilians working in Japan
> send money to their home country?

According to the Brazilian guy sitting 3 metres on my right, ordinary 
garden variety bank transfer or "Pa-lu-lu" giro at the post office.

  I remember someone telling me about 7
> years ago that the total annual non-commerical wire transfers from Japan to
> Brazil was something like USD $2 billion - that's got to be worth an entry
> in the Brazilian budget accounts.

In their current account yes. In my previous life I wrote a paper about 
stuff like this - its an interesting field. Oh why Oh why on earth did I 
leave it for engineering and my slow and steady descent to 
salesdude/driver/cleaner/bartender?

If the annual remittances aggregate does exceed USD$2 billion then it 
would put Brazil #2 behind the Phillipines. Have a browse through

http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/finance/download/wpap21.pdf




-- 
A hand on the bush is worth two birds on the arm.