By Lee C. Chipongian
The central bank said overseas Filipinos remitted $24.9 billion via bank transfers for the January-October period, up 4.6 percent year-on-year or from $23.8 billion.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported that cash remittances or remittances captured by the formal banking sector from land-based workers went up by 3.8 percent to $19.4 billion while sea-based workers wired money amounting to $5.4 billion as of end-October, up eight percent year-on-year.
Cash remittances of overseas Filipinos with work contracts of less than one year, in the meantime, increased by eight percent to $2.7 billion for the month of October only, from $2.5 billion same time in 2018.
“By country source, the US registered the highest share to total remittances during the period January to October at 37.6 percent. It was followed by Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Japan, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, and Kuwait. The combined remittances from these countries accounted for 78.4 percent of total cash remittances during the period,” the BSP stated.
Last week, the BSP revised all its external sector accounts except for its estimated cash remittances growth which remains at three percent.
Personal remittances, which are not bank-channeled, rose by 4.3 percent year-on-year to $27.6 billion as of end-October from $26.5 billion. For the month of October alone, it reached $3 billion or up 7.7 percent from $2.8 billion in October 2018.
By type of worker, personal remittances for January-October 2019 from land-based workers’ personal remittances increased by 3.8 percent to $21.1-billion January-October from $20.30 billion. These are overseas Filipinos with work contracts of one year or more.
The combined remittances of sea-based and land-based workers with short-term contracts totaled $5.9 billion, 7.5 percent higher than $5.5 billion last year, said the BSP.