OFW remittances up 6.6% in July

MANILA, Philippines - Money sent home by Filipinos working abroad continued to increase in July, hitting a seven-month high during the period.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said cash remittances amounted to $1.927 billion in July, 6.6 percent higher than the $1.809 billion recorded in the same period last year.

The July figure was also greater than the $1.916 billion recorded in June and was the highest since December last year, when remittances stood at $1.975 billion.

From January to July, cash remittances grew 5.8 percent to $12.627 billion from $11.936 billion in the same period last year.

Remittances from sea-based workers went up 7.8 percent to $3 billion, while money coming from land-based workers climbed 5.2 percent to $9.6 billion during the seven-month period.

The major sources of remittances were the US, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Canada and Japan.

“The steady deployment of OF workers remained the key driver of the growth in remittance flows,” the BSP said.

Citing data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, the BSP said approved job orders were 495,304 in the seven months to July. The job orders were primarily manpower requirements in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Taiwan, Qatar, and Hong Kong.

At the same time, the expansion of remittance services of banks and non-banks helped support the continued increase in money sent home by Filipinos abroad.

The BSP expects cash remittances to grow by five percent this year from the $21.391 billion recorded in 2012.

Meanwhile, personal remittances, which include cash and non-cash items, rose 7.4 percent to $2.112 billion in July from $1.967 billion in the same month last year. This brought the seven-month tally to $13.934 billion, 6.4 percent higher than last year’s $13.093 billion.

“The sustained expansion in remittance flows during the period was driven largely by the 5.2-percent growth in transfers from land-based OFWs with work contracts of one year or more, whose remittances comprised about three-fourths or 75.2 percent of the total,” the central bank said.