Envoy: Remittances from US, other countries key to PH growth
Ambassador to the US Jose Cuisia Jr. reporting on the Philippine economy at a Harvard Club luncheon with business leaders in New York. PHOTO BY ELTON LUGAY
• Remittances reached a new high in June
• Money from US account for half of remittances annually
WASHINGTON, DC—The Philippines regained its position as Southeast Asia’s best performing economy during the first semester of the year, thanks to remittances from Filipinos in the United States and other countries, the Philippine ambassador to the US reported.
“The Philippine economy grew by 6.4 percent during the second quarter of 2014 also because of the millions of dollars that our kababayans, especially those in the US, have been sending home,” Ambassador Jose L. Cuisia, Jr. said after the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) announced the good news.
“Our diaspora plays a very important role in the economic transformation now taking place in the Philippines,” Cuisia said, praising the 3.5-million members of the Filipino-American community who consistently account for more than half of the total remittances the Philippines receives annually from abroad.
Citing NEDA figures, Cuisia said remittances by overseas-based Filipinos reached a new high for the year in June when inflows went up by 5.9 percent to $2.050 billion that month, raising the total for the first half by 5.8 percent to $11.422 billion.
Cuisia cited the improved performance of the Philippine economy in urging a group of businessmen in New York to consider doing business in the Philippines.
“The emergence of the Philippines as ‘Asia’s New Emerging Tiger’ is a strong demonstration of a tipping point phenomenon – the results of transformational leadership changes and policy reforms introduced in almost 30 years,” Cuisia told businessmen at the Harvard Club during a luncheon co-hosted by Samish Kumar, CEO of Transfast, a leading international money transfer company and Peter Tichansky, president and CEO of the Business Council for International Understanding.
The luncheon group included senior-level executives involved in financial services, consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, equipment manufacturing communications and law and government.
Kumar said his company, which operates a proprietary network of over 200,000 payment points across more than 100 countries in the Americas, Asia, Europe and Africa, will continue to be a major player in the remittance sector in the Philippines.
“The 3.5 million Filipinos in the US and the 850,000 in Canada send nearly $13 billion–or more than half of the approximately $25 billion—of global, cross-border remittances sent annually to the Philippines,” Kumar said.
“Transfast delivers a large percentage of these remittances making the company a significant player in the Philippines economy,” he added.
In July, Transfast expanded to over 20 banks the instant bank deposit service for money transfers to the Philippines that it first launched in 2009.
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