Foreign Exchange
Previous week: The local currency corrected during the week and veered away from the 45 territory. After Monday’s trading holiday, the peso strengthened to 44.635 to a dollar, the strongest the peso has been in about two weeks. It, however, slipped on Wednesday to its weakest for the week at 44.805. The local currency then rallied further on Thursday to appreciate back to 44.625 before ending the trading week at 44.77 against the US dollar. The total traded volume is at $2.87 billion, lower than the previous week’s $3.635 billion.
Week ahead: The local currency is expected to continue its rally against the dollar as worries of weaker global trade offset optimism in investor sentiment abroad. Economic data releases from the US this week will largely be one of the foreign-exchange traders’ lead in trading the peso against the dollar for the week.
Overseas Filipino Workers’ Remittances (August 2014)
Wednesday, October 15
July’s OFW remittances: Cash sent by Filipino migrant workers sustained its growth at the beginning of the second half of the year. Money from overseas Filipino workers that reached the Philippines through banks and other registered financial institutions hit $2.063 billion in July this year. This is the largest monthly remittance flow for the country in 2014. July’s remittance inflow was
6 percent larger than the remittances flows seen in the same month last year. It also brought the total remittances for the first seven months of the year to $13.49 billion.
August OFW remittances: Central bank governor, in a recent speaking engagement, said that remittance flows will continue to course toward the country and remain to be one of the Philippines’ “anchor of stability” in this period of volatility in external markets. The government’s target for the year is a 5-percent growth from the overall remittances seen in 2013.