MANILA, Philippines - Despite an employment ban in Taiwan, money sent home by Filipinos abroad continued its growth in May, hitting a five-month high of $1.867 billion, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported on Monday.
The amount, BSP said in a statement, represented cash remittances coursed through banks, which rose by 5.3 percent during the period. It was also the highest since December’s $1.975 billion.
For the first five months, the tally already rose 5.6 percent year-on-year to $8.783 billion, faster than the central bank’s 5-percent growth projection for the whole 2013.
A separate gauge called personal remittances— which take into account hand-carry money transfers, both in cash and in kind— increased by a faster 6.2 percent in May and 6.4 percent so far this year.
The data comes amid the imposition of the employment ban in Taiwan in the middle of May as a reaction to the shooting and death of a Taiwanese fisherman by the Philippine Coast Guard in the West Philippine Sea.
The prohibition remains in effect today, together with a travel advisory against the Philippines. It was not immediately known how much of the May remittances came from Taiwan, but the island is home to more than 85,000 Filipinos.
But for BSP Governor Amando Tetangco, Jr., remittances, one of drivers of Philippine economy, continued to be “robust due to sustained strong demand for skilled Filipino manpower overseas.â€
Efforts by banks to establish more branches and offices abroad, he said, also paid off as overseas Filipinos find more medium to send their money back to their families.
According to data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, there were a total of 431,394 job orders during the first half of the year, a third of which were already processed and being readied for deployment.
Job orders, the BSP said, were meant to meet manpower needs abroad for services, production, professional and technical related workers to the Middle East.
By country, the United States remained the top source of remittances from January to May, accounting for 43.9 percent of the total, central bank data showed.
It was followed by Saudi Arabia (8 percent), the United Kingdom (5.4 percent), the United Arab Emirates and Singapore (4.8 percent), Canada (4.3 percent) and Japan (3.1 percent).
Land-based overseas Filipinos sent the bulk of money home versus seafarers. As of May, Tetangco said the former sent a total of $6.7 billion, while the latter contributed $2.1 billion.
Remittances form part of the country’s over-all balance of payments (BOP), which measures the economy’s over-all capacity to meet trade and external debt obligations.
Since 2005, the country’s BOP has been in surplus, indicating more than enough resources to meet its foreign liabilities.