AFP FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines – Cash sent home by the country’s 10 million migrant workers rose to a record high in October, providing a much-needed boost to the stuttering Philippine economy.
With demand for overseas Filipino workers (OFW) staying strong abroad, remittances rose to just shy of $20 billion for the 10 months to October, growing faster than official projections.
“The steady demand for skilled professional Filipino manpower supported the growth in remittance inflows,” the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), which has been tracking the flows, said in a statement.
For October alone, remittances rose 7 percent to $2.22 billion—the highest level in any single month on record. The previous record was set in December of last year when remittances reached $2.17 billion.
This brought remittances to a total of $19.87 billion from the start of the year to the end of October, growing 6.2 percent over 2013 levels. For all of 2014, government forecasts a growth in remittances of 5.5 percent to a record high of over $24 billion.
Last year, remittances accounted for about 8 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.