Money sent home in 2011 by up to 10 million overseas Filipinos ended the year slightly higher than forecast, having actually grown by 7.2 percent to $20.1 billion.
This was an acceleration from the forecast growth of just 7 percent and comes at a time when the political unrest in countries grouped as the Middle East and North Africa or Mena, plus the financial issues hounding the euro area made the target tentative.
For this year, the remittance growth was seen moderating to 5 percent, as consequence of more subdued global outlook.
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Deputy Governor Juan de Zuniga Jr. said the transfer of all that money helped boost domestic demand and is estimated to have equaled 9 percent of local output or gross domestic product (GDP).
De Zuniga paid tribute to the overseas Filipinos who helped make this possible, saying the remittances “continued to be a major contributor in stimulating domestic demand.”
“Remittances remained resilient throughout the year amid the political turmoil in some parts of the Mena, the slowdown in economic growth and the intensified financial strains brought about by the euro area sovereign debt crisis,” he said.
According to him, the upgraded skills of Filipino workers and the diverse number of countries where they may be found also helped make the remittances resilient in the face of a global slowdown.
Also, contributing to continued resilience was the network of bank and nonbank service providers that were in strategic places for Filipino workers.
The new financial products and money-transfer services offered in the remittance market also helped better capture the global remittances. Zuniga said the continued remittance growth was fueled in part by the 14-percent growth in money transfers made by sea-based Filipino workers and the 5.5-percent growth noted in the remittances of land-based workers. Remittances by land-based workers equaled 78.4 percent of total and the balance made up for by sea-based workers.
BSP data showed overseas Filipinos collectively sending home $1.799 billion worth of foreign currency earnings in December last year alone, the highest during the year.
Continued remittance growth is expected this year, albeit at a slower pace, given the report by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration that 12.3 percent of total approved job orders of 58,123 or 7,160 have already been processed.
These were service, production, professional, technical and related job categories sought by such countries as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Taiwan, Singapore and Kuwait.
