After four months of declining growth, remittances from the estimated 10 million overseas Filipinos worldwide picked up in April, rising 6.3 percent to $1.6 billion, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said on Wednesday.
In March remittances grew only 4.1 percent, the slowest pace since August 2009.
For the first four months of the year, remittances have already reached $6.21 billion, or 6 percent higher than the $5.86 billion in the same period last year.
BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. had said the remittances would grow around 7 percent this year to around $20.1 billion, compared with year-ago remittance growth of 8.1 percent.
“The sustained growth in cash transfers from overseas Filipinos was due to increased remittances from both sea-based and land-based workers, which rose 12.2 percent and 4.4 percent, respectively,” Tetangco said in a statement.
He also said it drew support from the steady overseas demand for Filipino skills and expertise, and the continuing efforts by banks and other financial institutions to extensively promote and improve upon the financial products and services they offer in the remittance market.
Some 10 million Filipinos live or work overseas and the greater bulk send back most of their earnings to families in the Philippines, helping push the economy forward via domestic consumption that account for some 10 percent of local output, or the gross domestic product.
The BSP quoted data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration showing sustained demand for Filipino workers abroad.
For the January 1-to-May 31, period, the approved job orders reached 269,386, some 32 percent, or 86,300 of which were already processed, while 68 percent, or 183,086 are still to be filled up.
The job orders represent the manpower requirements in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Taiwan and Hong Kong, among other places.
Also seen to boost remittances was the reported issuance of rules strengthening Canada’s temporary foreign-workers program in April that is expected to help alleviate labor shortages in the North American country, Tetangco said.
Most of the remittances originated from the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Italy, Tetangco added.
