OFWs remitted $2.4 billion until May

Remittances from overseas Filipinos reached $2.4 billion in May, up by 1.8 percent year-on-year, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) figures released last July 15 showed.

From January to May, transfers posted a growth rate of 2.7 percent to $12 billion, BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. announced.

The land-based overseas Filipino workers with work contracts of one year or more contributed $9.2 billion, with the sea-based workers and land-based workers on short-term contracts (excluding their expenditures abroad) providing $2.6 billion in remittances.

Cash remittances coursed through banks totaled $2.2 billion last May, higher by 1.9 percent compared from the year-ago record.

About 80 percent of cash remittances came from the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Japan, Qatar, Kuwait, Hong Kong, and Germany.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) reported that the number of deployed workers reached 211,799 from January to May, with 80 percent of the outbound workers engaging in services and sales, as well as elementary occupations, such as those working in the agriculture, forestry and fishing, mining, construction, manufacturing and transport sectors, and craft and related trades workers.

The contract workers were deployed mostly to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

Reports from the POEA of additional demand for Filipino nurses in Japan and Germany are expected to support the continued inflow of remittances.

RIZA LOZADA