Remittance from OFWs up by 5.3%

MANILA, Philippines - Despite an employment ban in Taiwan, money sent home by Filipinos abroad continued to increase in May, hitting a five-month high of $1.867 billion, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported yesterday.

The BSP said in a statement that the amount 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 rose 5.6 percent year-on-year to $8.783 billion, faster than the central bank’s five-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 6.2 percent in May.

The data comes amid the imposition of an employment ban in Taiwan in the middle of May as a result of the killing of a suspected Taiwanese poacher by members of the Philippine Coast Guard in Balintang Channel near the border between the Philippines and Taiwan.

It was not immediately known how much of the May remittances came from Taiwan where there are more than 10,000 Filipino workers.

BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said the remittances, one of drivers of the economy, continued to be “robust due to sustained strong demand for skilled Filipino manpower overseas.”

Efforts by banks to establish more branches and offices abroad, he said, also paid off as overseas Filipino workers found more outlets to send their money to their families.

Data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration showed that there were 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 (eight percent), United Kingdom (5.4 percent), 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 land-based workers sent $6.7 billion, while seafarers contributed $2.1 billion.

Remittances form part of the country’s overall balance of payments (BOP), which measures the economy’s overall 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.