MikeLigalig.com

By Joann Villanueva

Money sent home by overseas Filipinos (OFWs) registered its new record-high level of US$ 1.7 billion in October 2010.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. on Wednesday said remittance grew by 9.3 percent year-on-year in the 10th month this year against year-ago’s US$ 1.57 billion.

This brought to nearly US$ 15.5 billion the inflows in the first 10 months this year, 7.9 percent higher than year-ago’s US$ 14.2 billion and is a tad closer to the eight percent full-year 2010 growth forecast of the central bank.

BSP said majority of the inflows came from the U.S., Canada, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the U.K., United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Italy, Germany and Norway.

Tetangco traced this increase to steady inflows both from sea-based and land-based overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

Citing initial data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), Tetangco said approved job orders in the first 11 months this year reached 578,535 and 39.2 percent of which were for service, production, professional, technical and related workers.

Most of these workers were sent to Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Tetangco said strong demand for skilled and professional OFWs alongside the expansion of tie-ups of domestic banks and non-bank money transfer service providers with their foreign counterparts continue to boost inflows coursed through the formal channel.

“In particular, the continuing efforts to improve on the variety and coverage of the global remittance networks have enabled more overseas Filipinos to send remittances using more innovative financial services offered in the market,” Tetangco said.

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