REMITTANCES from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) coursed through banks reached $1.5 billion in April, registering a year-on-year growth of5.4 percent, an official from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said.
BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. announced on Wednesday that the cumulative remittances for the first four months of the year amounted to $5.9 billion. He said the 6.6 percent year-on-year growth recorded during the four-month period was shored up by higher remittances from both sea-based and land-based workers.
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Recover
“Notwithstanding concerns over sovereign debt problems in some European countries, remittances from overseas Filipinos continued to show strength amidst the gradual recovery of the global economy,” Tetangco said in a statement.
He said remittances were propped up by the steady demand for Filipino workers abroad, specifically professional and skilled workers, as well as the expanded access of overseas Filipinos and their beneficiaries to an increasing range of financial products and services offered by banks and other financial institutions.
Data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) showed that workers classified as new hires with processed contracts and who are awaiting deployment rose by 11.0 percent to 137,888 for January to April this year from 124,170 in the same period last year.
Approved job orders in the first five months of the year also totaled 295,373, of which about a third consisted of processed job orders for service, professional, technical and production and related workers.
Agreement
It added that the Asean-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA) that took effect in January this year is also seen to boost more job opportunities for Filipino nurses and engineers.
BSP said the bulk of remittances reported by local banks for the four-month period were mainly from the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and Italy.
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