Overseas remittances up 25.4 percent in February

The vast army of overseas Filipino workers sent $1.10 billion home in February, taking the total for the first two months of the year to $2.2 billion, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Monday.

Remittances for the first two months of the year were up 22.6 percent from the same period last year, the bank added.

Some eight million Filipinos, or nearly 10 percent of the population, work abroad.

In the 1970s, the majority were construction workers, which later shifted to low-skilled domestic workers. However the labor export program is now more focused on skilled, higher-paying jobs, the government says.

It said the number of Filipino workers overseas over the first two months of the year fell 12.1 percent from a year earlier to 170,072.

Remittances sent through banks are expected to grow by 10 percent to 14 billion dollars this year, after rising 19.4 percent to a record 12.8 billion in 2006, the BSP said.

It said there was “continued demand for higher-skilled, thus better-paid, Filipino workers by host countries” while banks now capture “a large segment” of the cash flows.

“The level of remittances is expected to increase further as banks remain dynamic in providing innovative remittance and financial services to (overseas Filipino workers), and introduce aggressive marketing programs.” AFP