More overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) sent more money to relatives in the Philippines last April as the global economy gradually recovered from the recession, the central bank said Wednesday.
OFW remittances totaled $1.5 billion or P69 billion in April, up 5.4-percent from April last year.
Philippine coins. Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/16916080@N05/
Total remittances from January to April rose by 6.6 percent to $5.9 billion or about P271 billion, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Gov. Amando Tetangco Jr. said.
“Notwithstanding concerns over sovereign debt problems in some European countries, remittances from overseas Filipinos continued to show strength amidst the gradual recovery of the global economy,” the central bank said in a statement.
“Remittance flows were propped up by the steady demand for Filipino workers abroad, specifically professional and skilled workers, as well as the expanded access of overseas Filipinos and their beneficiaries to an increasing range of financial products and services offered by banks and other financial institutions,” it said.
About 81.4 percent of the money transferred via local banks came from the US, Canada, Saudi Arabia, UK, Japan, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, and Italy.
The Asean-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement, which came to force in March would spur more job opportunities for Filipino nurses and engineers in the free trade zone, the BSP said.
There were 137,888 Filipinos waiting for deployment aboard in the first four months, up by 11 percent from a year earlier, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration said.
Job seekers whose applications were approved in the same period totaled 295,373, POEA said.
Source: GMANews.tv
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