October Remittances up to 1.4 billion dollars

Doris Dumlao reports in Inquirer.net that Jan-Oct dollar remittances are up by 15.2%.

News in Xinhuanet.com cites October remittances at 1.4 billion dollars.

Remittances to the Philippines coursed through banks surged by 17.1 percent to a record high of 1.4 billion U.S. dollars in October as overseas Filipinos sent home earnings before the Christmas season, the country's central bank BSP said on Friday.

    The October figure brings the level of remittances for the first ten months of the year to 11.9 billion dollars, an increase of 15.2 percent from a year ago, the central bank said in a statement posted on its website.

    Most of the remittances came from the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Singapore, Japan, and China's Hong Kong, the BSP said.

    The growth in remittances was also consistent with the recovery in the number of overseas workers, the BSP said, citing preliminary data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).

    The POEA data showed that total deployment number in October climbed 3.9 percent to 88,058, the fourth consecutive month that the deployment figure was higher compared to the respective year ago level.

    "The sustained increase in remittance inflows may also be attributed in part to greater access by overseas Filipinos to Philippine money transfer agents as the number of remittance centers and tie-ups with foreign financial institutions increased, reaching out to a greater number of Filipino remitters abroad," the BSP said.