Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said Thursday remittances from overseas Filipinos will continue to be a major pillar of economic growth.
“I think remittances will continue to be a significant source of foreign exchange for us and a significant source of funding for economic activities such as consumption investments and the like and boost the economy,” Tetangco said.
“Despite these issues, remittances have continued to exhibit resilience. You’ve got the global financial crisis in 2007 and 2008. You’ve got the oil price sharp decline over the last two years. But remittances have continued to increase,” he said.
Tetangco said the recent slowdown in remittances growth could not be attributed to the money laundering scam. He said this could be due to different factors, such as the strengthening of the US dollar against third currencies.
“So it has converted into the US dollar, then the US dollar equivalent is less. There are also mitigations that if you convert the dollar amounts to Philippine peso, then the value has actually gone up because the peso has weakened against the US dollar. So in terms of what the families here actually receive in terms of peso are much higher,” Tetangco said.
Cash remittances grew 4.6 percent to a record $25.767 billion in 2015 from $24.628 billion in 2014. It also accounted for a tenth of gross domestic product.