OFW Remittances Up 7.2% in August

Manila—(PHStocks)—Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)—Personal remittances from overseas Filipinos (OFs) continued to rise in August 2014, posting 7.2 percent growth year-on-year to reach $2.3 billion. This brought personal remittances for the first eight months of 2014 to $17.2 billion, higher by 6.5 percent relative to the year-ago level, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

The increase in personal remittances was driven largely by the steady increase in transfers from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more (5.2 percent), and sea-based and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year (8 percent).

Similarly, cash remittances from OFs coursed through banks grew by 6 percent year-on-year to $2.1 billion in August 2014.  For the period January-August 2014, cash remittances reached $15.5 billion, or a 5.8 percent increase compared to $14.7 billion registered in the same period in 2013. In particular, cash remittances from land-based and sea-based workers rose by 5.2 percent (to $11.8 billion) and 8 percent (to $3.7 billion), respectively.  The bulk of cash remittances (about 79 percent) came from the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Japan, Canada, and Hong Kong.

The strong demand for skilled Filipino workers overseas remained a key driver in the sustained growth of remittance flows. Preliminary data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) showed that for January-August 2014, job orders reached 619,388, of which 38.6 percent were processed job orders intended for service, production, and professional, technical and related workers in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Taiwan, and Qatar.

Moreover, the efficient network of bank and non-bank remittance channels established worldwide and their efforts to expand financial services to cater to the various needs of OFs provided support to the inflow of remittances.