Remittances – good news for government

By Mike Wootton

Money sent to the Philippines by Filipinos working abroad is officially now running at around $22 billion a year, representing 10 percent of Philippine gross domestic product (GDP), and is forecast to increase. And this may be but a fraction of the total money earned abroad, which is brought back and spent in the Philippines as other money will be “imported” via informal means (carried in suitcases or not transmitted via the banking system). Whether or not this money should be counted into GDP at all rather than gross national product (which includes remittances sent from abroad) is a debatable issue, given that GDP is the value of domestic production, but let that pass for the moment.