Remittances from Pinoy seamen to hit $5.5B

MANILA, Philippines - Remittances from Filipino seafarers on board foreign vessels are expected to reach $5.5 billion by the end of the year as the country deploys more seamen to Europe.

Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) said in the first six months of the year, Filipino seafarers sent home $2.746 billion, 8.84 percent higher than last year.

Cash transfers from sailors, TUCP said, grew twice faster compared to the remittances from land-based migrant Filipino workers in the first semester of 2014.

 “From January to June, Filipino seafarers sent home $223 million more than last year and the growth was due to boost in hiring,” TUCP said in a statement.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas previously reported that remittances from all overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) hit $11.421 billion from January to June. The figure was $621 million or 5.75 percent higher than the $10.800 billion that they sent home over the same semester in 2013.

Land-based OFWs transferred $8.675 billion from January to June, up $399 million, or 4.82 percent, from the $8.276 billion that they remitted in the same six-month period last year.

TUCP said more Filipino sailors were deployed to the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Greece, and the Netherlands.

“Some of the increase may also be attributed to rising inflation here at home, prompting sailors to send more money to their families to enable them to cope with the surge in food and other consumer prices,” TUCP noted.

The top 10 sources of remittances from Filipino sailors in the first semester were: the United States ($1.326 billion); the United Kingdom ($237.583 million); Germany ($194.844 million); Norway ($183.529 million); Japan ($149.295 million);  Greece ($141.452 million); Hong Kong ($123.084 million); Singapore ($110.194 million); The Netherlands ($45.726 million); and Italy ($23.511 million).

The labor group has long been pushing for the aggressive deployment of sailors, nurses and other skilled workers to foreign labor markets, to ease high unemployment.