Philippine remittances up 7.4% in August

The Philippine remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFW) grew by 7.4 percent to 2.1 billion U.S. dollars in August from a year ago level amid the steady deployment of workers abroad, the Philippine central bank said Wednesday. According to Diwa Guinigundo, the officer-in-charge of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), August was the fifth consecutive month for this year that personal remittances exceeded 2 billion dollars in the country, bringing the January to August data to 16 billion dollars, up by 6.6 percent from last year's. "The steady deployment of overseas Filipino workers remained one of the key drivers of the growth in remittance flows," he said. The major sources of cash remittances were the United States, Saudi Arabia, Britain, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Canada, and Japan, he said.