MANILA – Remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) soared to $12.8 billion in the first nine months of the year, or from January to September, due mainly to a strong demand abroad for professionals and other skilled Filipinos, the head of the Central Bank (CB) of the Philippines disclosed.
Amando Tetangco Jr., the CB governor, explained the increase in remittances compared to the same period in 2008, was also the result of the growing access of the OFWs and their families to a broader array of financial products and services.
For the first nine months of this year, Tetangco cited CB data which showed that the remittances totalled close to $12.8 billion, or a 4.2 jump over the $12.2 billion recorded for the same period in 2008.
In September 2009 alone, he said OFW remittances jumped by 8.6 percent to $1.4 billion as compared to the same month last year.
As a result, Tetangco said the CB is now looking for a four percent growth in remittances for the whole of 2009 to a record level of $17.1 billion from last year’s $16.2 billion.
In 2010, Tetangco said the CB is projecting a further increase of six percent in OFW remittances due to the recovery of many nations from the global crisis.
With the robust remittances, he said the CB revised upwards its projected gross international reserves (GIR) to a range of between $43 billion and$44 billion as well as the balance of payments (BOP) position to a surplus of between $4 billion and $5 billion for 2009.
The GIR is the sum of all foreign exchange flowing into the country while the BOP is the remaining balance net of all external payments for debt servicing and imports.
Originally, the CB governor admitted that they were projecting a zero growth in remittances due to the ongoing global financial and economic meltdown that initially resulted in the layoff of thousands of Filipino workers deployed abroad.
Sharing in the CB’s pessimistic outlook were financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund which predicted that the remittances would be reduced due to the global recession.
However, Tetangco said the CB revised its projections following the steady deployment of OFWs and the increased access to formal remittance channels through the establishment of more remittance centers and tieups abroad.
As proof, he pointed out that remittances from both sea- and land-based workers expanded during the first three quarters of the year.
As before, Tetangco said the major remittance sources were Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates in the Middle East, the US and Canada in North America, the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany in Europe and Japan and Singapore in Asia.
Based on statistics provided by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, Tetangco said the POEA has processed 43.9 percent or 226,260 of the 515,438 jobs needed abroad. The bulk, he said, are for service, production and transport-related workers.
But the POEA, he said, is anticipating an increase given the continued hiring arrangements between the Philippines and existing and non-traditional labor markets.
Tetangco cited as an example the projected hiring of about 50,000 skilled Filipino workers for the improvement and expansion of American military facilities in Guam due to their relocation from Japan and Okinawa within the next five years.
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