OFW remittances top $10 billion in 7 months

MANILA, Philippines – Remittances sent home by overseas Filipino workers breached the $10-billion mark after expanding by 7.1 percent in the first seven months of the year due to the continued strong demand for Filipino manpower worldwide, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. reported yesterday.

Tetangco announced that overseas Filipino remittances reached $10.679 billion from January to July this year or $706 million higher than the $9.973 billion registered in the same period last year as remittances from sea-based Filipino workers grew by 9.4 percent while that of land-based workers rose by 6.5 percent.

“Underpinning mainly the resilience of remittances is the continued demand for Filipino manpower worldwide as global employment prospects remained favorable,” he stressed.

Data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) showed that workers classified as new hires with processed contracts and are awaiting deployment rose by 15.1 percent to 251,748 for the first seven months of the year from 218,627 in the same period last year. Approved job orders aggregated 447,936 in the first eight months of which 36.8 percent were comprised of processed job orders for service, professional, technical, as well as production and related workers.

The favorable outlook on remittance flows stemmed from reports from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) of employment opportunities for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Guam involving the construction of military facilities including a naval hospital that would require 7,000 to 10,000 construction workers every year between 2011 and 2020.

The labor department also cited the US military relocation in the island of Tinian in the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI) as well as the construction of Tel Aviv-Jerusalem Express Railway Line that could offer jobs for OFWs.

Main sources of OFW remittances include the US, Japan, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, and Italy. These countries accounted for 81.7 percent of the total remittances in the first seven months of the year.

For the month of July alone, Tetangco said OFW remittances grew 8.2 percent to $1.616 billion from $1.494 billion in the same month last year. OFW remittances last July was the second highest monthly record next to $1.623 billion registered in June.

Remittances went up by 5.4 percent to a new record level of $17.348 billion in 2009 from $16.426 billion in 2008 and exceeded the revised four percent growth forecast set by the central bank.

“Given sustained remittance flows at the onset of the second half of the year amidst the uneven pace of global economic recovery, a steady level of transfers from overseas Filipinos is anticipated for the remaining months of 2010,” the BSP chief stressed.

The central bank said the expected steady stream of remittances would also draw continuing support from the increasing global network of banks and non-bank remittance centers which have established more tie-ups with foreign financial institutions.

“Their aggressive marketing efforts to provide enhanced financial services to cater to the various needs of overseas Filipinos are expected to further shore up remittance flows through the banking system,” Tetangco added. –Lawrence Agcaoili (The Philippine Star)