ShareThisMANILA -– Money sent home by Filipinos abroad posted a stronger expansion in end-September 2011 after rising by 7.1 percent year-on-year against the previous month’s 6.9 percent.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported that remittances as of last September reached US$ 14.76 billion, higher than year-ago’s US$ 13.78 billion.
BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said inflows for last September alone grew by 8.4 percent to US$ 1.74 billion, higher than month-ago’s US$ 1.67 billion and year-ago’s US$ 1.6 billion.
He said remittances from both the land-based and sea-based workers rose during the period.
Money sent home by land based workers, which accounts for 78 percent of total remittances, went up by 5.3 percent to US$ 11.6 billion while those from sea-based workers grew by 14.1 percent to US$ 3.2 billion.
Bulk or 84.9 percent of the inflows came from the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Japan, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Italy, Germany and Norway.
“OF’s remittances continued to be an important contributor in solidifying the country’s economic fundamentals amidst the lingering global economic uncertainties, driven by prospects of sustained demand for Filipino workers abroad,” Tetangco said.
Citing Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) data, the central bank chief said processed job orders for overseas workers for Saudi Arabia, UAE, Taiwan, Qatar, Kuwait, and Hong Kong reached 223,172 as of October 31 this year, and this accounts for 40.7 percent of the total approved job orders.
Also, the number of land-based workers with processed contracts as of last August grew by 4.5 percent to 933,579 from year-ago’s 893,220 while the number of sea-based workers’ with processed contracts and awaiting deployment rose by 5.5 percent to 316,411 from 300,033.
The central bank said “POEA’s data on job orders abroad provide support for a stable outlook on the growth of remittances in the last quarter of 2011.”
Relatively, Tetangco cited the wider remittance network of domestic banks as another factor to the robust growth of money sent home by overseas Filipinos through the formal channel.
As of last September, the total number of bank branches, correspondent banks, remittance centers and tie-ups where OFs send their money rose by 6.7 percent to 4,688 as against year-ago’s 4,392.