MONEY sent home by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) will continue to increase with the onset of holidays, a top official from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) 7 said.
BSP 7 acting director Maria Lux Berciles said the central bank’s projection on OFW remittances has been increased from six to eight percent due to the strong demand for OFWs.
Remittances coursed through banks for the first half of the year grew by 6.9 percent to $9.1 billion from $8.479 billion in the same period last year.
The BSP reported in its website that in June, remittances totaled $1.6 billion, reflecting a year-on-year increase of 8.3 percent from $1.498 billion in the same month last year.
“The flow of remittances will continue to improve so long as the demand of Filipino workers will continue to expand,” Berciles said in a phone interview yesterday.
She added that remittances will continue to surge with the holidays approaching.
The main sources of remittances were the US, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the United Kingdom, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, and Italy. The combined flows from these countries represented 81.7 percent of the total remittances reported by the banks.