Remittances sent through banks by Filipinos abroad grew 17.2 percent year-on-year last August after it reached US$ 10.9 billion from year-ago’s US$ 9.34 billion.
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Deputy Governor and officer-in-charge Nestor Espenilla Jr. attributed this development to the continued billion dollar-level inflows of remittances, with the August figure alone at US$ 1.3 billion.
He, however, noted that the month-on-month growth of remittances declined to 10.4 percent from the previous month’s 24.64 percent growth.
These inflows mainly came from US, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Italy, United Arab Emirates, Canada, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
Remittances posted its highest growth in June 2008 after the month’s inflows totaled to US$ 1.45 billion or a 30 percent jump from last May’s US$ 1.43 billion.
Noting the widely expected decline of remittance inflows because of the global financial meltdown, Espenilla reiterated monetary officials’ earlier statements that remittances will continue to boost the economy amid the current global financial crisis.
BSP officials earlier said inflows coming from the Middle East in particular will off-set the slower remittance growth along with the higher deployment of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs).
Data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) shows that OFW deployment in the first eight months of the year grew by 26.4 percent to 884,907 from the 699,937 same period last year.
Espenilla said most of these workers were deployed in the Middle East and some Asian countries like Taiwan and Hong Kong. - Philippine News Agency
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