Personal Remittances Increase to US$13.7 Billion in the First Five Months of 2019
Personal remittances from Overseas Filipinos (OFs) rose to US$2.9 billion in May 2019, a 5.5 percent increase from US$2.7 billion in May 2018. On a cumulative basis, personal remittances for the period January–May 2019 increased by 4.1 percent to reach US$13.7 billion from last years’ level of US$13.2 billion. This was announced by BSP Governor Benjamin E. Diokno today.1
The steady growth in personal remittances during the first five months of 2019 drew support from the remittance inflows from land-based OF workers with work contracts of one year or more, which aggregated to US$10.5 billion from US$10.2 billion in the same period last year. Inflows from the compensation of sea-based workers and land-based workers with short-term contracts also contributed to this growth and totaled US$2.9 billion from US$2.7 billion a year ago.
Likewise, cash remittances from OFs coursed through banks rose to US$2.6 billion in May 2019, a 5.7 percent increase, from US$2.5 billion in the same period a year ago. This brought cash remittances for the period January – May 2019 to reach US$12.3 billion, 4.5 percent higher than the US$11.8 billion recorded in the same period last year. In particular, cash remittances from land-based and sea-based workers increased by 3.2 percent at US$9.7 billion and 9.2 percent at US$2.7 billion, respectively, during the first five months of 2019.
By country source, the US registered the highest share of overall remittances for January to May 2019 at 36 percent. It was followed by Saudi Arabia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, the UK, Japan, Canada, Hong Kong, Qatar and Kuwait.2 The combined remittances from these countries accounted for 78 percent of total cash remittances from January to May 2019.
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1 The BSP started to release data on personal remittances in June 2012. As defined in the Balance of Payments Manual, 6th Edition (BPM6), personal remittances represent the sum of net compensation of employees (i.e., gross earnings of overseas Filipino (OF) workers with work contracts of less than one year, including all sea-based workers, less taxes, social contributions, and transportation and travel expenditures in their host countries), personal transfers (i.e., all current transfers in cash or in kind by OF workers with work contracts of one year or more as well as other household-to-household transfers between Filipinos who have migrated abroad and their families in the Philippines), and capital transfers between households (i.e., the provision of resources for capital purposes, such as for construction of residential houses, between resident and non-resident households without anything of economic value being supplied in return).
2 There are some limitations on the remittance data by source. A common practice of remittance centers in various cities abroad is to course remittances through correspondent banks, most of which are located in the U.S. Also remittances coursed through money couriers cannot be disaggregated by actual country source and are lodged under the country where the main offices are located, which, in many cases, is in the U.S. Therefore, the U.S. would appear to be the main source of OF remittances because banks attribute the origin of funds to the most immediate source. The countries are listed in order of their share of cash remittances, i.e., from highest to lowest.