OFW remittances up 25.4% at $1.1B in Feb

Overseas Filipino workers' earnings sent home through banks increased by 25.4 percent to $1.1 billion dollars in February, even as deployment decreased, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said on Monday. In a statement posted on its website, the central bank said remittances for the first two months of the year have reached $2.2 billion, or 22.6 percent higher than the $1.8 billion recorded in the same period a year ago. Central bank data show that the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore are still the primary origins of OFW remittances. BSP governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr said the robust growth of remittances was due mainly to the expansion of bank networks that serve OFWs and their beneficiaries. Tetangco said overseas workers are steadily favoring using banks over informal ways of sending their earnings back home. Because of this, he said remittances coursed through banks will likely grow 10 percent this year and reach $14 billion. Remittances coursed through banks reached $12.8 billion in 2006, a record high. The central bank official said the sustained demand for higher-skilled, and thus better-paid, Filipino workers is also contributing to the healthy growth of remittances. Tetangco said this trend makes up for the decrease in the number of deployed Filipino workers, which recorded a decline in the first two months of 2007 from the year-ago level. Preliminary data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) showed that total deployment declined by 12.1 percent year-on-year to 170,072. Classified by type of worker, the number of land-based and sea-based workers was lower by 10.1 percent and 18.8 percent to 134,644 and 35,428, respectively.-GMANews.TV