OFW inflows up 11% in Jan-Apr

By Des Ferriols
The Philippine Star 06/16/2006

Remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) surged by almost 11 percent to hit $3.7billion in the first four months of the year from a year ago level, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported yesterday.

The BSP said banks reported a slowdown in April, halting the momentum during the first three months as banks felt the impact of the decline in the number of deployed workers abroad. In the first three months, remittances grew by a stronger 14.64 percent.

The BSP said April remittances barely moved compared to last year, reaching $899 million–only half a percent higher than year-ago level of $895 million.

According to the BSP, preliminary data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) on new hires and rehires from January to April 2006 showed that the total number of deployed workers dropped by 2.7 percent to 359,402.

Land-based workers, which comprised 74.7 percent of total deployed OFWs, declined by 5.8 percent to 268,637 while sea-based workers was higher by eight percent to 90,765.

The BSP reported that partly compensating for the effect of the contraction in the number of deployed workers was the sustained aggressive marketing campaigns conducted by local banks.

"These bank initiatives offered overseas workers with a wide array of instruments/facilities for faster means of remittance transfer to beneficiaries," the BSP reported.

Major sources of remittances remained to be the US, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Japan, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom.

Banks reported a 12 percent increase in remittances from overseas Filipino workers in the first quarter of the year, reaching $2.8 billion due to a slight increase in the number of deployed workers abroad and the declining use of non-bank channels as remittance agents.

Remittances in the first quarter had been strong, coming ahead of the reopening of schools in June. Inflows from OFWs are supposed to be even stronger in April but with fewer workers sending money home, remittances also slowed down.

The BSP said the increased deployment of highly-skilled, thus, higher-paid land-based workers compensated for the reduction in the number of workers going abroad but not enough to sustain the momentum.

The BSP said deployed labor were mainly engineers, teachers, ship and pilot/aircraft officers, production related workers and service providers.

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