Remittances Up 3% YoY

Personal remittances from overseas Filipinos (OFs) reached $2.7 billion in July 2018, higher by 4.5 percent compared to the level posted in the same month in 2017. On a cumulative basis, personal remittances grew by 3 percent year-on-year to $18.5 billion, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Nestor A. Espenilla Jr. said.

The rise in personal remittances during the first seven months of 2018 was supported by an increase of 2.8 percent and 4 percent in remittance inflows from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more and sea-based workers and land-based workers with short-term contracts, respectively.

Cash remittances from OFs coursed through banks totaled $2.4 billion in July 2018, posting a 5.2 percent increase from the level recorded in the same month last year. Cash remittances sent by land-based workers grew by 4.5 percent to $1.9 billion, while those from sea-based workers expanded by 7.8 percent to $511 million. By country source, the primary contributors to the growth in cash remittances for the month were the United States (US), Canada, United Kingdom (UK), and Germany.

For the first seven months of 2018, cash remittances climbed to $16.6 billion, a 3 percent increase from the level registered in the same period in 2017. In particular, cash remittances from land-based and sea-based workers totaled $13.1 billion and $3.5 billion, respectively. More than 79 percent of the total cash remittances came from the US, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Japan, UK, Qatar, Canada, Germany, and Hong Kong.