Where do most of the OFW remittances come from? (Infographic)

Where do most of the OFW remittances come from? (Infographic)

In 2014, OFWs around the world sent 6.2% more remittances back to the Philippines than in 2013, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has reported. Total remittances reached $26.92 billion (P1.20 trillion), as compared to $25.35 billion (P1.13 trillion) the year before. This is a record high, according to the central bank authorities.

To break it down further, land-based workers remitted $18.7 billion (P834.96 billion), while seafarers remitted $5.6 billion (P250.04 billion).

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration has said that 1.6 million Filipinos were deployed abroad in 2014, as job orders increased by 10.7% to 878,609. The BSP has said that around 43% of these job orders were for for service, production, professional, technical and related workers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Taiwan and Qatar.

Overall, in 2014 the Philippines was third in the world at receiving remittances, behind India and China at first and second respectively, based on statistics from the World Bank. Remittances also contributed 8.5% to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) last year. To find out where OFW remittances to the Philippines come from, and the top 20 remitting countries to the Philippines, check out our infographic below.

While 2014 was a banner year for remittances, in the first two months of 2015, remittances were up by just 2.4%, one of the weakest growth rates for remittances in years. This could be due to the lower oil income and scaling down of projects in the Middle East, where a significant amount of OFWs are based. Continued economic weakness in other countries, especially the developed ones, may also slow down the rate of remittances back to the Philippines.

“The government should realize that it cannot forever depend on OFW remittances to fuel or sustain consumption-induced economic growth,” says a report from the Philippine Daily Inquirer.