Remittances up 8.4% to $1.9B in Jan. — Bangko Sentral

The amount of money sent home by Filipinos who live and work abroad expanded by 8.4 percent in January to $1.9 billion from $1.7 billion a year earlier, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reported Friday. "These flows consisted primarily of transfers from land-based overseas Filipino workers with work contracts of one year or more, which grew by 6.8 percent, the Bangko Sentral noted in a statement. Money transfers by sea-based and land-based workers with short-term contracts grew by 11.7 percent, it added. Cash remittances from overseas Filipinos coursed through banks also increased by 8 percent to $1.7 billion in January from $1.6 billion. Remittances largely originated from United States (38.9 percent), Canada (11 percent), Saudi Arabia (7.6 percent), the United Kingdom (5.3 percent), United Arab Emirates (4.7 percent), Singapore (3.9 percent), and Japan (3.8 percent). The steady demand for skilled and professional Filipino workers and the continued expansion of money transfer services in the global market continue to sustain remittances, according to Bangko Sentral. New financial products and services also helped address the needs of overseas Filipinos and their beneficiaries when it comes to money transfers, it said. The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration indicated an expanding base of overseas Filipinos worldwide—the number overseas workers deployed last year grew by 6.7 percent to 1,800,465 from 1,687,831 a year earlier—of which nearly four-fifths or 79.6 percent were land based. In the first two months of 2013, POEA data also showed that the 29,533 job orders were mostly in the service, production, professional, technical and related fields. The processed job orders were to cover the manpower needs in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, and Taiwan. Workers with contracts processed and were waiting to be deployed numbered 2,083,223 in 2012, up by 12.6 percent from 2011, the POEA also noted. — VS, GMA News