OFW International set to launch 2 subsidiaries

OFW International Holdings Inc. is expanding its business network to serve and jumpstart the domestic needs of overseas Filipino workers, a company official said.

Norman Gacula, executive vice president and chief operating officer of OFW Holdings, said two more subsidiaries, OFW Land Inc. and OFW Travel & Tours Corp., are now operational and will be formally launched early next month.

Another planned venture is a bank which would specifically cater to the OFW market. There are now more than seven million OFWs based in over 100 countries worldwide whose average annual remittances amount to an estimated $6 billion, the country’s second biggest dollar earner after electronics and semiconductor exports.

Along with OFW Remittance & Foreign Exchange Corp., which is now fully operational and initially servicing OFWs in Kuwait, these companies are all 99 percent-owned by OFW Holdings, the umbrella unit formed just over a year ago.

OFW Holdings was spun off as the private stock corporation and implementing arm of the Overseas Filipino WorldNet (OFWnet) Foundation Inc. which was registered at the Securities and Exchange Commission as a non-stock, non-profit organization in June 2001.

In order to achieve its mission of providing overseas Filipino achieve economic empowerment, OFWNet established OFW Holdings to guide and implement sustainable business ventures, mainly entrepreneurship and livelihood projects, for OFWs and their families.

Gacula said the organization has provided small business loans to its members who are implementing their own entrepreneurship or livelihood projects. "On top of the loan, technical assistance, consultancy and monitoring services are being provided to implement their projects more efficiently and effectively," he said.

The group derives their capital needs from members’ contributions and internally-generated funds, not from soliciting investments from the public.