UBS Asian Economic Comment - Philippines: Remittances Holding Up

Summary

- Overseas Filipino Worker Remittances grew 4.9% in the year to February
2009. The level of remittances rose to 1.32bn US dollars from 1.26bn US
dollars in January.

- This was better than we expected; the normal seasonal change is for
remittances to remain relatively stable in February compared to January.

- As we highlighted in Southeast Asian Focus - Philippines: Important
signposts; Ed Teather; 3 April 2009 remittances have, as one should
expect, experienced much less downside than exports in recent months
(see chart 1). Positively, the BSP governor attributed the rise in
remittances to a rising deployment of workers and a slowdown in the
increase in the number of reported layoffs. The increase in the number
of workers deployed in January and February was 27.3% on the year.

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