OFWs' Dollars

BRINGS 6-MONTH INFLOWS TO $4.9B
OFW remittances surged 32% in June
Doris C. Dumlao
Inquirer News Service

REMITTANCES from the country's migrant workers surged by 32.1 percent in June to $935 million from a year ago due to the higher deployment of skilled workers and improved access to banking channels, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reported.

BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said the sustained double-digit growth in overseas Filipino workers' (OFW) remittances had brought the first-semester inflows to $4.9 billion, which was 21.5 percent higher than the year-ago level of $4 billion.

The bulk of the fund transfers came from the United States, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.

Citing data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, Tetangco said the total number of deployed Filipino workers for the first semester rose by 6.8 percent to 527,573.

Land-based workers increased by 6.1 percent to 402,332 from a year ago while deployed sea-based workers rose by 9.2 percent to 125,241.

"The demand for both land- and sea-based Filipino workers has continuously grown on account of the value-enhancing training provided to local workers prior to deployment (such as multi-lingual proficiency, information technology literacy) to develop and hone their capabilities as well as boost their competitiveness and marketability," Tetangco said.

The top destinations of OFWs were Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, and Japan.

It also helped that higher paid and professional workers were being deployed, Tetangco said.

For the first quarter of 2005, POEA data indicated that production-related, professional/technical and service providers comprised the bulk of the deployed workers.

"Banks continue to intensify their efforts in extending banking services to overseas Filipino workers by increasing the number of remittance centers abroad, introducing innovative means of remittance transfer and establishing ties with foreign financial institutions," Tetangco added.

In a survey by the National Statistics Office in 2000, about 7.25 percent of Filipino households or approximately 1.1 million derived their main source of income from cash and other assistance from abroad.

Given the large magnitude of these OFW flows, these cash transfers have been fueling economic growth in the past couple of years and have been partly responsible for the growth of such sectors as real estate and telecommunications.

"Remittances are important in providing the economy with foreign exchange resources, helping ease foreign exchange liquidity constraints and contributing to a stronger balance-of-payments position," Tetangco said in a recent speech.

These cash transfers also contributed in increasing disposable income and thus lead to increasing consumption, which had been a consistent source of economic growth. Moreover, remittances allowed resources to be available and mobilized where investments are needed.