MANILA, Philippines - Remittances from overseas Filipinos grew 5.3 percent to $1.701 billion in April from $1.616 billion a year ago and above the $1.698 billion recorded in March, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported yesterday.
The April figures brought the January to April 2012 remittances to $6.543 billion, 5.4 percent higher than last year’s $6.210 billion.
Remittances, which help power domestic consumption, are expected to grow five percent this year, slowing from the previous year’s annual climb of 7.2 percent.
Remittances in 2011 reached $20.12 billion.
Remittances from sea-based and land-based workers grew during the four-month period, supporting the growth in remittances from January to April.
“The 5.4-percent year-on-year increase in fund transfers in 2012 was supporter by higher remittances from both sea-based ($1.5 billion and land-based ($5 billion) workers which grew by 14.6 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively,” the BSP said.
The steady demand for Filipino workers abroad as well as the expanded access of overseas Filipinos and their beneficiaries to a wide range of financial products and services offered by banks and other remittance service provides.
Citing data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), the BSP said that there are 85,009 workers waiting for deployment and whose contracts have already been processed.
“Meanwhile, for the first five months of the year, approved job orders aggregated 334,945, of which about a third or 11,848 consisted of processed job orders for service, professional, technical and production and related workers which are intended for deployment to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Quatar, Kuwait, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong,” the BSP said.
The BSP attributed the stronger dollar inflows to the continued expansion of banks’ presence in different host countries. These initiatives include tie-ups with local financial institutions with local and foreign money transfer operators, mobile service operators and pawnshops.
As of June, there are about 4,732 bank branches, correspondent banks, remittance centers and agents providing remittance services to overseas Filipinos. This is higher than the 4,575 entities recorded in the same period last year.
Major sources of cash remittances passing through the formal channels were the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Japan and the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Italy, Germany and Hong Kong.
The BSP also released yesterday data on personal remittances to provide a wider picture on the transactions of overseas Filipinos.
“This is in line with the refinement in the measure of remittances under the International Monetary Fund’s Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual, 6th edition which provides the framework for the compilation of the balance of payments,” BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said.
Personal remittances, which represent the sum of net compensation of overseas employees, aim to measure the total amount of remittance flows into the country through formal channels such as electronic wire transfers and informal channels such as money or goods carried across borders.
Data showed that personal remittances from overseas Filipinos grew to $1.9 billion in April, up 5.5 percent over a year ago.
For the four-month period, personal remittances increased by 5.6 percent to $7.3 billion.