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Aug 20, 2010
MANILA — Remittances of overseas Filipinos continue to increase and this early it is projected to hit a record $19 billion this year. Even Central bank officials who said the remittances had peaked were surprised with the record $1.6 billion remittances in June. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas data released on Monday showed the remittances totaled $ 1.623 billion in June alone, the single largest flow of remittances sent home in any month since this first passed the $ 1-billion level consistently since May 2006.
This brought the first half remittances for the year to $9.1 billion. The main sources of remittances were the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the United Kingdom, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Italy. Combined flows from these countries represented 81.7% of the total remittances reported by the banks. Remittances grew by 5.6% to $17.3 billion last year and the BSP expects this year’s uptick to hit 8%. “In June alone, remittance flows peaked at $ 1.6 billion, reflecting a year-on-year expansion of 8.3 percent boosted by remittances from both sea- and land-based workers,” said Bangko Sentral Governor Amando M. Tetangco.
The next highest BSP official, Deputy Governor Diwa C. Guinigundo, had said they would not be surprised if the flow of overseas Filipino remittances were to stabilize the rest of the year and not pull any more surprises.
Both Tetangco and Guinigundo said the remittances should continue to expand this year at a fast clip of some eight percent on average.But in June alone, the remittances posted growth rate exceeding eight percent over last year, allowing the first-half remittances also to expand by just under seven percent to $ 9.062 billion. Assuming the full year remittance flows post average growth of eight percent as expected,then such remittances should total more than $ 18 billion by the end of the year.“The continued deployment of professional and skilled Filipino overseas workers, given favorable global employment opportunities, underpinned the resilience of remittances,” Tetangco said of the data coming out for the month of June.