TOTAL remittances from overseas Filipinos coursed through banks reached $2.8 billion in the first two months of this year, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said.
The BSP said remittance from sea-based and land-based workers for the two-month period registered increases of 13.4 percent and 6.4 percent, respectively.
“The strong remittance flows during the two-month period were shored up mainly by the continued strong demand for professional and skilled Filipino overseas workers as global employment opportunities remained favorable, combined with the wider access to expanded money transfer services by overseas Filipinos and their beneficiaries,” the BSP said in its website.
These factors support the optimistic outlook for the sustained growth in remittances throughout the year, the BSP said.
The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) indicated that the total number of deployed overseas workers last year posted a year-on-year growth of 15.1 percent to 1,422,586 from 1,236,013 in 2008.
Of the total number of deployed overseas workers last year, more than three-fourths were land-based, of which 68 percent were rehired employees.
The number of rehired workers, which totaled 742,447, increased by 24.3 percent as a result primarily of the government’s job generation and facilitation programs to help displaced overseas workers find alternative jobs in emerging markets and in countries that are not severely affected by the global financial meltdown.
The major sources of remittances for January-February this year were the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Japan, United Kingdom, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and Italy.
Remittances from these countries accounted for about 82 percent) of the total inflows reported by local banks.
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