MANILA, Philippines — The business process outsourcing (BPO) industry will continue to ensure the country’s services account will remain in surplus in the next two years, with the IT-BPO revenues expected to sustain a steady 20 percent growth beginning this year.

Taking into account the Business Processing Association of the Philippines’ (BPAP) medium-term road map of reaching $25 billion BPO revenues by 2016, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said in a report that surplus in the services account part of the balance of payments’ (BOP) current account position is expected to increase to $3.8 billion next year from the estimated $2.8 billion in 2011.

“This is due to the expected higher receipts from other services consisting mainly of IT-BPO revenues in 2012,” the BSP’s Department of Economic Research said. “It is projected that the IT-BPO industry will sustain its revenue growth of 20 percent in 2012 (on account of) the expected deeper presence in the country of high-value, non-voice IT-BPO sectors.”

These are financial BPOs, healthcare, media, engineering, animation and game development.

The services account, which covers transactions in transportation, travel, communication and other business and recreational services, amounted to $1.9-billion surplus in 2010.

The BSP since 2005 conducts its own IT-BPO survey to monitor all foreign exchange flows into the country. BPOs’ dollar revenues are expected to rise to $11 billion this year from $9 billion in 2010.

BSP Deputy Governor Diwa C. Guinigundo said earlier that the BPOs remain one of the growth drivers of the economy because of its impact on the services sector.

The BSP’s latest IT-BPO Services Survey, released last April, said the service industry “continued to provide sound support to the economy, despite the challenges posed by the nascent stages of global economic recovery in 2009.”

The services account is expected to be higher next year despite that overall current account position will likely decline to $1.2 billion in 2012 from a projected $5.6 billion this year, according to a BSP document. Current account consists of transactions in goods, services, income, and current transfers. It measures the net transfer of real resources between the domestic economy and the rest of the world.

The country’s rising import bill is expected to push current account position lower next year.

The BSP expects exports to grow by 9.5 percent this year, revised lower from earlier forecast of 10 percent, while imports are expected to increase by 17.5 percent, lower than previous forecast of 18 percent.

The lower current account surplus this year and in 2012 convinced BSP officials to revise lower the BOP surplus projection to $6.7 billion (3.1 percent of GDP) for this year from $6.9 billion previous estimate, and $4.4 billion next year (1.9 percent of GDP). (LCC)