[ manilastandardtoday.com ]
Remittances sent home by Filipino
workers abroad hit a record $1.8 billion in June, up by 4.2 percent from $1.7
billion a year ago.
The 4.2-percent rise, however, was the
slowest in 15 months and lower than the government’s full-year remittance
growth target of 5 percent, as fund transfers from crisis-hit European nations
declined.
The Bangko Sentral said including
non-cash items, total personal remittances reached $2 billion in June, also
higher by 4.2 percent from the same month last year.
This brought cash remittances in the
first six months to $10.1 billion and personal remittances to $11.3
billion. Cash remittances in the
January-June period rose 5.1 percent from a year ago while personal remittances
increased 5.3 percent during the same period.
Remittances, which account for about a
tenth of the gross national income, support consumer spending in the
Philippines and help boost banking, real estate, education, healthcare,
transportation and retail trade.
“The steady uptrend recorded during
the six-month period was supported by higher personal remittances from
land-based OF workers with work contracts of one year or more [up by 2.7
percent], as well as sea-based workers and land-based workers with short-term
contracts [by 13.7 percent],” said
Bangko Sentral Governor Amando Tetangco Jr.
Fund transfers from land-based workers
rose 2.8 percent to $7.8 billion in the first half while remittances from
sea-based workers climbed 13.6 percent to $2.3 billion.
Top sources of remittances in the
six-month period were the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Arab
Emirates and Hong Kong.
“Cash remittances from most countries
in the euro area [e.g., Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, among others] posted
downtrends as a result of the interlocking sovereign debt and banking crisis,”
said the Bangko Sentral.
Higher remittances, however, were
registered in some countries in the non-euro area, notably the United Kingdom.
Data from the Philippine Overseas
Employment Administration showed that in 2011, the number of workers deployed
overseas increased by 14.8 percent, of which 80 percent were land-based workers
while the remaining were newly hired workers.
The POEA said that as of July this
year, approved job orders reached 472, 261, of which 35 percent consisted of
processed job orders for services, professional, technical, and production and
related workers.
The rest of the job orders were
intended for the manpower, requirements in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates,
Qatar, Kuwait and Taiwan.
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