Personal remittances up, reach $2.9 billion in January

March 16, 2020

Personal remittances from overseas Filipinos (OFs) grew by 7.3 percent year-on-year in January to reach $2.94 billion from $2.75 billion in January 2019, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas ( BSP) said Monday.

Personal remittances from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more rose to $2.27 billion, 7.4 percent higher than $2.12 billion recorded in January 2019.

Meanwhile, personal remittances from sea-based and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year rose by 3.9 percent to $0.6 billion from $0.58 billion from a year ago.

  Cash remittances from OFs coursed through banks amounted to $2.65 billion in January, a 6.6 percent increase from $2.48 billion recorded in January 2019.

This increase was due to the rise in remittances from both land-based ($2.1 billion) and sea-based ($0.55 billion) workers, which rose by 7.4 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively.

By country source, the United States registered the highest share of overall remittances at 38.6 percent. It was followed by Japan, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Canada, Hong Kong, and Korea.1 The combined remittances from these countries accounted for almost 80 percent of total cash remittances. DMS