THE country will post a new record high in its foreign exchange reserves in 2010, supported by an accelerated growth in remittances and investments in the business process outsourcing industry, according to latest projections by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

The BSP said the gross international reserves (GIR) could reach between $47 billion and $48 billion next year, higher than the expected $43 billion to $44 billion for 2009.

“The country’s external payment position will continue to be favorable in 2010,” BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. told reporters Friday. He said an increase in the foreign currency reserves would be one of the benefits the Philippines will gain from a gradual recovery of the global economy from the worst crisis since the Great Depression.

The GIR is the total amount of foreign currency reserves of a country that are kept and managed by the central bank. It determines a country’s ability to engage in commercial transactions—like foreign trade and debt payments—with the rest of the world.

As business activities in recession-afflicted countries pick up, so will deployment of more Filipinos to jobs offshore. Tetangco said estimates by the central bank showed a potential 6-percent growth in remittances next year, faster than this year’s anticipated rise of 4 percent.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration has signed agreements with counterparts in various countries that are in need of labor. These agreements were sustaining the growth in deployment of Filipinos to work abroad.

Tetangco said remittances this year, despite the contraction in the economies of industrialized nations, were still poised to grow, albeit at a slower pace, because of continued deployment to alternative labor markets. He said the recovery of recession-afflicted countries by 2010 would further increase the amount of money sent by overseas Filipinos.

The central bank chief said the outlook on foreign investment inflows was also more favorable in 2010 than this year.