Overseas Filipinos personal remittances up 9.4% in August

October 16, 2017

Overseas Filipinos’ personal remittances grew 9,4 percent in August to reach $2.8 billion, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Monday.

This brought personal remittances from January to August to $20.7 billion, higher by 6.4 percent relative to the year-ago level.

The increase in personal remittances was driven largely by the sustained inflow of  transfers from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more (at $16.0 billion) and remittances from sea-based and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year  (at $4.2 billion), the central bank said.

Cash remittances from overseas Filipinos coursed through banks rose by 7.8 percent to $2.5 billion in August., By country source, the primary contributors to the rise in cash remittances during the month are the United Arab Emirates (UAE),  United States, Singapore and Qatar.

From January to August, cash remittances reached $18.6 billion or a 5.4 percent increase compared to the level registered in the same period last year.

The sustained influx of remittances was observed from land-based workers ($14.7 billion) and sea-based workers ($3.9 billion) which grew by six percent and 3.2 percent, respectively.

The bulk of cash remittances (82.5 percent of total cash remittances from January to August came from the United States, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Singapore, Japan, United Kingdom, Qatar, Kuwait, Germany and Hong Kong. DMS