Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — A stable demand abroad for skilled Filipinos has bolstered a sustained growth in personal remittances, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported on Monday (August 17).
BSP Governor Amando Tetangco, Jr. revealed that funds sent home by FIlipinos abroad grew by 5.8 percent year-on-year in June, reaching $2.4 billion.
The figure subsequently brings personal remittances for the first half of 2015 to $13.4 billion, 5.3 percent higher than the $12.7 billion during the same period last year.
Citing preliminary data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), the BSP said that total job order reached 454,263, more than a third (37.8 percent) of which were intended mainly for “service, production, and professional, technical, and related workers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Taiwan, and the United Arab Emirates.
The sustained growth was also supported by an increase in remittances from land-based workers with contracts of at least one year (6.1 percent) and sea-based and land-based workers with short-term products (3.7 percent).
Cash remittances from overseas Filipinos coursed through banks reached $2.2 billion in June, up by 6.1 percent from the same month in the previous year. On a cumulative basis, the said funds from January to June 2015 grew by 5.6% to $12.1 billion from last year’s $11.4 billion.
Likewise, cash remittances from land-based and sea-based workers grew by 6.2 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively. The BSP said that major sources of the funds were from the U.S., Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the U.K., Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, and Canada.
The BSP added that the continued initiatives of bank and non-bank remittance service providers to expand their market coverage, and the introduction of innovations in their remittance products, has helped buoy remittance growth.
At the end of June, commercial banks’ established tie-ups, remittance centers, correspondent banks, and branches/representative offices abroad reached 5,541, compared 4,675 as of during the end of June last year.
