Business

Personal Remittances at US$2.2B in January 2016

Manila—(PHStocks)—Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)—Personal remittances from overseas Filipinos (OFs) increased by 3.2 percent year-on-year in January 2016 to reach US$2.2 billion, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Amando M. Tetangco, Jr. announced.  These flows consisted primarily of transfers from land-based OF workers with work contracts of one year or more, amounting to US$1.7 billion, as well as compensation of sea-based workers and land-based workers with short-term contracts (excluding their expenditures abroad), which reached US$0.5 billion.

Likewise, cash remittances from OFs coursed through banks amounted to US$2 billion in January 2016, rising by 3.4 percent from the level posted a year ago. Remittances from both land-based (US$1.6 billion) and sea-based (US$447 million) workers expanded by 3 percent and 4.6 percent year-on-year, respectively. More than three-fourths of cash remittances came from the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Qatar, and Japan.

Remittance flows from overseas Filipinos remained resilient, underpinned by the sustained demand for skilled Filipino manpower overseas. Preliminary data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) indicated that 30.5 percent of the 84,670 total approved job orders in January 2016 were processed during the period. Processed job orders were intended mainly to fill in demand for service, production, and professional, technical and related workers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Taiwan, and the United Arab Emirates.

The continued efforts of bank and non-bank remittance service providers to expand their international and domestic market coverage through their network of remittance business partners worldwide also provided support to steady remittance flows.

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