The central bank of the Philippines said total remittances may surpass the 8 percent projected growth this year, possibly exceeding $19.4 billion as many overseas Filipinos still employ services of non-banks in sending their hard-earned dollars home.
“Approximately around that figure,” bank governor Amando Tetangco said.
At the present target growth rate of 8 percent, remittances for this year will only reach $18.7 billion.
Although Tetangco said the present target growth rate still holds, they, however, are not discounting the possibility of more overseas Filipinos using non-bank facilities.
“(The growth targets) will be reviewed by October,” Tetangco said.
Tetangco added that recent studies show that overseas Filipinos using non-bank facilities constitute around 5 percent of the total workforce abroad.
Latest data from the central bank showed that during the first quarter of this year, remittances coursed through banks reached cumulative amount of $4.3 billion.
The data showed that the amount of remittances coursed through non-bank facilities reached $200 million, bringing the total remittances for the first quarter to $4.5 billion.
Following this trend, full year remittances coursed through non-banks may reach between $700-800 million, which will bring total remittances for this year to $19.4 billion.
Tetangco earlier said that the continued expansion in the number of banks’ branches, remittance centers and correspondent banks and tie-ups has resulted in the stronger presence of financial institutions abroad, which in turn, helped capture a bigger share of the global remittance market.
As of June 2010, these remittance conduits totaled 4,351 compared to 3,730 last year.
But Tetangco said they are also aware that some overseas Filipinos prefer using other means of sending money home, specifically through friends who are headed back to the Philippines.
Remittances coursed through banks in the first half of the year amounted to $9.1 billion, posting a year-on-year growth of 6.9 percent compared to the same period in 2009.
In June, remittance flows peaked at $1.6 billion — the highest on record — reflecting a year-on-year expansion of 8.3 percent boosted by remittances from both sea-based and land-based workers.
Tetangco said the “continued deployment of professional and skilled Filipino overseas workers, given favorable global employment opportunities, underpinned the resilience of remittances.”
Preliminary data obtained from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration indicated that workers classified as new hires with processed contracts and are awaiting deployment rose by 13.5 percent to 212,700 for the period January-June 2010 from 187,338 in the same period last year.
Moreover, for the first seven months of the year, approved job orders aggregated 356,878, of which more than a third consisted of processed job orders for service, professional, technical, and production and related workers.
Tetangco said work prospects overseas for Filipino seafarers were also reported by the Department of Labor and Employment following plans of the Japanese Shipowners Association to hire 2,000 seabased workers as officers and crew of high-end Japanese vessels in the next two years.
The main country sources of remittances were the U.S., Canada, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the U.K., Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Italy.
