DEPARTMENT of Trade and Industry (DTI) 7 Director Asteria Caberte has asked central bank officials to provide regional dollar remittance data to help the trade agency map out better policies for Central Visayas.
Speaking before officials of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Tuesday after the presentation of the newly-released 2014 Consumer Finance Survey in the BSP Cebu regional office, Caberte said her office would like to know how much of the dollar remittances flow to Central Visayas.
“We know that consumption, construction and home improvements are mostly because of dollar remittances…DTI wants to know how much we have as a region in dollar remittances because it will guide us in crafting policies and development efforts in the region,” she said, noting the large presence of overseas Filipino workers from Central Visayas.
Caberte has also raised the same concern to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), noting that they report the gross regional domestic product (GRDP) yearly.
At present, BSP reports dollar remittances monthly and are specified according to countries where they come from. However, as to what area in the Philippines they are sent to, the central bank cannot say, said BSP Economic Statistics Director Rosabel Guerrero.
“That is no longer provided to us by the banks. We have been requesting banks, but the banks say it is difficult to track because these are consolidated in their main office,” added the BSP official.
What can be done instead is to mobilize the local government units to undertake their own study through community-based monitoring systems (CBMS). Under this process, LGUs collect data on how many of its constituents are supported by a member of the family abroad and how much they receive in a month.
CBMS seek to address existing data gaps in LGUs for diagnosing the extent of poverty, determining the causes of poverty, and formulating appropriate policies and programs at the local level.
In 2016, remittances from overseas Filipino workers grew by five percent to a record high of $26.9 billion from $25.61 billion in 2015. BSP said 80 percent of the total remittances last year came from the US, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Japan, Qatar, Kuwait, Hong Kong, and Germany.