P98.7 trillion OFW remittances: Good news and bad
The Bangko Sentral Ng Pilipinas reported a six-month high of 2.27 billion US dollars of remittances from Filipinos abroad in June this year. At a dollar exchange rate of 43.5 pesos to a dollar, that translates into 98.745 trillion pesos. The June remittances brought the six month inflow from OFWs to 12.674 billion US dollars or 551.319 trillion pesos from January to June this year. Of course, these figures represent only the money sent by Filipinos abroad that went through the banking system and the remittance centers that are being regulated by the Central Bank. If we follow last year's trend, the amounts were sent through informal ''padala'' or were carried by visiting OFWs themselves was 20 % more than those sent through formal channels, , then a total of monthly 5.4 billion a month means 65.376 billion dollars a year or 2.843 trillion pesos.
The BSP projected that the horizon remains bright for the Philippine economy, considering only the volume of remittances from OFWs. The demands for Filipino human resources for abroad has remained robust. The POEA reported that for the first half of the year, no less than 371,097 job vacancies demanded for Filipinos. These vacancies are in the service industries like hotel and restaurant personnel, also in the production and manufacturing sectors that include factory workers, technicians and machine operators in electronics, manufacturing and the likes, and from the professional sectors like nurses, doctors, dentists, medical technologists, radiologists and engineers, and architects. The Filipinos are still the most preferred by the labor-receiving countries globally.
The jobs are waiting in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia. There are already hundreds of thousands of Filipino migrant workers in these countries and these OFWs are sending money without let up. The remittances from land-based workers alone rose by 4.8 % in the amount of 8.7 billion US dollars and the sea-borne OFWs sent 2.& billion US dollars or a 8.8% increase. The BSP reported that most of these remittances were sent in by OFWs in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, USA, UK, Singapore, Japan, Canada and Hongkong, Kuwait, Taiwan and Malaysia. The OFWs get double or triple jobs just to earn more to send more.
The good news is that these strong inflows of dollars are the ones driving domestic consumption. Malls, restaurants, food chains and stores are making a killing from the dollar remittances. Even the remittance centers and the banks that engage in these kind of business, including dollar exchange centers are reaping substantial profits out of the dollar exchange rates. They buy low and sell high and make a lot of profits. In 2013, the BSP reported an annual bank remittances of 22.968 and personal or informal remittances of 25.351 billion US dollars or a combined remittances of 48.319 US dollars or 2.1 trillion pesos. Indeed, the OFWs are not called '' modern heroes'' for nothing. Houses are built micro enterprises are fueled by OFW money and college education is given more impetus by OFW remittances.
- Latest
