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MANILA - China needs 100,000 English teachers, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello said Tuesday, as the Philippines eyed Beijing as an alternative market for migrant workers repatriated from Kuwait.

Manila on Monday announced a total ban on the deployment of Kuwait-bound OFWs following the recent deaths of 7 Filipinos in the oil-rich nation. The Philippines is mulling sending affected workers to other countries like China and Russia, Bello had said.

English teachers could earn as much as $1,500 (P78,000) per month in China, he told DZMM.

The Asian superpower, he added, is also in need of English-speaking household workers.

The Philippines and China may sign a bilateral agreement on the deployment of OFWs "within the month or next month", Bello said.

Manila is also eyeing similar accords with Israel, Czechoslovakia, Germany and Japan, he said.

Authorities say 252,000 Filipinos work in Kuwait, many as maids. They are among over 2 million employed in the region, whose remittances are a lifeline to the Philippine economy.

Last Friday, President Rodrigo Duterte hit out at Kuwait as he brandished photos reportedly of a Filipina maid found in a freezer, saying she had been "roasted like a pig".

Duterte has been vocal on the issue of abuse of Filipinos in the Middle East, even threatening a ban on citizens working anywhere in the region.

He also alleged Arab employers routinely raped their Filipina workers, forced them to work 21 hours each day and fed them scraps.

With a report from Agence France-Presse