Vincent Toritseju
with agency reports
05 March 2019, Sweetcrude, Lagos — Seafarers from Philippines working onboard foreign ocean-going vessels sent home a record amount of $6.14 billion U.S. dollars through the banking system in 2018, representing an 4.6 percent or 270 million U.S. dollars from the 5.87 billion U.S. dollars recorded in 2017, a member of the Philippine House of Representatives said.
“The amount does not include money remitted via non-bank channels as well as cash physically brought home by sailors on vacations,” lawmaker Aniceto Bertiz said in a statement.
By place of origin, Bertiz said the top sources of cash transfers from Filipino sailors in 2018 were the United States, 2.31 billion U.S. dollars; Singapore, 563.85 million U.S. dollars; Germany, 560.98 million U.S. dollars; Japan, 435.82 million U.S. dollars; Britain, 331.23 million U.S. dollars; China’s Hong Kong, 275.53 million U.S. dollars; the Netherlands, 259.12 million U.S. dollars; Greece, 174.98 million U.S. dollars.
“We see the demand for Filipino sailors rising steadily in tandem with international merchant ship traffic, as economies around the world continue to expand,” Bertiz said, adding the demand will grow as the global economy expands in 2019 and 2020.
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Filipino seafarers or seamen serve on bulk carriers, container ships, oil, gas, chemical and other product tankers, general cargo ships, pure car carriers and tugboats around the world.