In spite of the fact that remittances sent home to their families in Ecuador by the 2.5 million emigrants to the United States and Europe constitute one of the most important sources of dividends for the country, the government of President Lucio Gutiérrez, along with the entirety of the business and production sectors, estimate that Ecuador’s economic crisis will be resolved only with the return of Ecuadorians who have fled the country to escape from poverty.

“Spain has become our largest investor, but it ought to invest even more to create new sources of work, and then more Ecuadorians, instead of moving to Spain, would stay to work here,” says President Lucio Gutiérrez, at present halfway through his four-year term in a country of 13 million people.

Gutierrez’ economic stabilization plan also requires that markets raise the price of raw materials, that the Ecuadorian tourist industry reach heights that are still far in the future, and that the debt service on the $16 billion external debt become less of a drag on the national treasury.

Remittances from emigrants amounted to $1.56 billion in 2003, a number greater than the combined exports of bananas, coffee, shrimp, cacao and fish, trailing only oil exports.

But in 2003 the Ecuadorian economy grew at a rate of only 2.7 percent, one of the lowest rates in a decade; unemployment was at 12 percent, there was a high inflation rate (6.1 percent), and uncertain rates of underemployment along with poverty levels that adversely affect some 70 percent of the population.

In today’s Ecuador, 13 of every 100 residents are indigent, and four of every 10 suffer extreme poverty, especially in urban centers.

To develop the economy and thus encourage the return of emigrants, the government and private groups have created a non-profit entity, the Corporation for the Promotion of Exports and Investments (CORPEI), to certify the transparency of financial operations and the quality of products. Recognized by several U.N. agencies and by the European Union, it is attempting to increase exports and attract investments, seeking “competitiveness for businesses with social and environmental responsibility,” according to its president, Vicente Wang, the Ecuadorian banana and pineapple magnate.

But the increasing privatization of the petroleum industry and the current high prices of crude oil do not bring the volume of profits needed to support a rise in the Ecuadorian economy. “Of every five dollars generated by the sale of petroleum, we get only one,” laments Patricio Johnson, Minister of Production, who admits that the oil companies and their intermediaries get the bulk of the profits.

Nor do low prices on the international market for raw materials Ecuador exports, like coffee, cacao and fish, allow the country to earn much return to strengthen its production.

“We continue to make less for the same tonnage of exports,” calculates Sergio Cedeño Amador, one of the largest producers of cacao.

“We are producing a third of what we did ten years ago,” says Alicia Ortega, the heir of Hornero Ortega and Sons, in Cuenca, creators of the celebrated “Panama” hats, woven by hand from toquilla straw in the Ecuadorian provinces of Manabí and Azuay.

“Many weavers have emigrated, and the prices for our hats on the international market will not allow us to pay wages that would make it possible to keep the labor which emigrates,” Ortega concludes.

Gladis Eljui de Álvarez, Minister of Tourism, and Fabian Valdivieso, her colleague at the Environmental Ministry, harbor hopes that the income from tourism will begin to multiply, but Ecuador cannot offer tourism for the masses, whose explosive growth in Spain, for example, in the 60s and 70s, brought such great financial growth.

The kind of tourism which can be enjoyed in Ecuador is selective, elite, for those at a high level of economic consumption. In the Amazon jungle or the Galápagos Islands, where the natural environment must be preserved, exploitation is circumscribed; only small numbers of people can visit.

In spite of these limitations, President Lucio Gutiérrez ventures that in tourism as in oil, his formula is the one which will bring the greatest returns. In short, he says that his policy “is to maintain a balance between the development of the country and the preservation of the environment. We cannot develop if we destroy nature and we need to stay in control of tourist incursion into the country. We are being much more rigorous in the concession of petroleum contracts, in our standards of control, and in the environmental impact.”