RP sailors'
remittances up $250M, sustain double-digit growth rate
By TUCP
October
31, 2010
MANILA – Filipino
sailors aboard foreign-flagged ocean-going vessels wired home a total
of $2.461 billion in the eight months to August this year, up $250
million or 11.31 percent versus the $2.211 billion they remitted over
the same period in 2009, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP)
reported Sunday.
"The foreign exchange
coming in from sea-based migrant Filipino workers is growing twice
faster than those coming in from their land-based counterparts," said
TUCP secretary-general Ernesto Herrera.
"At the current
double-digit growth rate, we now see the full year remittances from
Filipino sailors abroad hitting around $3.7 billion," said Herrera,
former chairman of the Senate committee on labor, employment and human
resources development.
Herrera, whose
national labor center includes the Philippine Seafarers'
Union, attributed the sustained growth in remittances to the
increased deployment of sailors and global demographics.
"The intercontinental
maritime transport of all kinds of commodities is growing along with
global population expansion. Thus, the ever-increasing demand for a
fresh supply of sailors," the former senator said.
The total remittances
coursed through banks by all land- and sea-based migrant Filipino
workers increased by $839 million or 7.40 percent, to $12.181 billion
in the first eight months of 2010 from $11.342 billion in the same
period in 2009, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
Remittances from
land-based workers alone increased by $589 million or 6.45 percent to
$9.720 billion from $9.131 billion, year-on-year.
Filipino sailors on
mostly foreign merchant ships wired home a total of $3.4 billion in
the whole of 2009, up $366 million from $3.034 billion in 2008.
The 12.06 percent
growth in remittances from sea-based migrant Filipino workers in 2009
was nearly three times faster than the 4.15 percent or $555 million
year-on-year increase in the cash sent home by their land-based
counterparts.