OFW remittances jump 15.9% to $723M in Jan

Remittances by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) grew by 15.9 percent in January, reaching $723 million compared to $624 million a year earlier.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) attributed the higher remittance inflow to the continued increase in the number of workers deployed abroad.

The BSP said the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) has noted a six-percent increase in the number of newly hired and rehired OFWs.

According to the POEA report, deployed land-based workers numbered 86,412 in January, increasing by 5.6 percent compared to January last year. Sea-based workers, on the other hand, increased by 7.9 percent to 20,206.

The BSP said the deployed workers were mostly service workers, professionals, technical workers and production-based workers.

"The OFWs are deployed mostly in Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Japan, United Arab Emirates and Taiwan," the BSP said.

As the US economy performs better than expectations, the BSP said remittances from OFWs could be better than the official six percent target to reach at least 10 percent.

The growth in OFW remittances is expected to slow down this year from 11.8 percent in 2004 but the BSP said it is possible growth could be higher than expected.

BSP Governor Rafael Buenaventura said that although six percent growth would be substantial enough given last year’s record-setting base of comparison, "we can probably do a little better than six percent which is very good already." I’d say 10 percent would be the high end of the range we are seeing."

Buenaventura said it might be hard to expand faster than last year’s 11.8-percent growth rate but he said the improvement in the US economy despite the Bush administration’s accummulating deficit would be good for expatriate labor.

He added the oil industry in the oil-producing regions also continued to draw a significant number of OFWs and if the situation in Iraq stabilizes the country could resume sending workers to that part of the Middle East.

Remittances by OFWs grew by 11.8 percent in 2004, bringing the total remittances to $8.5 billion. Last year’s target growth rate was also six percent based on the projected increase in the deployment of workers abroad.

The BSP said the continued rise in OFW remittances was attributed to the growing demand for Filipino workers abroad and the seasonal transfers for the holiday season.

The BSP reported that local commercial banks, on the other hand, pursued vigorous marketing efforts to promote their money transfer services by expanding their network of remittance centers.

Buenaventura said banks have also been expanding their tie-ups with foreign financial counterparts and increasing the efficient delivery of services to OFWs.