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Philippines: Remittances hit 10-month high in October
MANILA, Philippines — Remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) recorded the fastest growth in 12 months in October, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reported yesterday.
According to BSP data, personal remittances increased by 7.7 percent, the fastest since the eight percent growth in October last year, to hit a 10-month high of $2.97 billion in October. This was the highest monthly personal remittances since hitting $3.16 billion in December last year.
Personal remittances composed of cash and non-cash items that flow through both formal or via electronic wire and informal channels such as money or goods carried across borders grew by 4.3 percent to $27.61 billion from January to October from $26.47 billion a year ago.
By type of worker, personal remittances from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more grew by 3.8 percent to $21.1 billion during the 10-month period from $20.3 billion in the same period last year.
Likewise, remittances from sea-based and land-based workers with short-term contracts rose by 7.5 percent to $5.9 billion from January to October from $5.5 billion a year ago.
On the other hand, cash remittances coursed through banks also increased by eight percent, the fastest since the 8.7 percent growth in October last year, to hit a 10-month high of $2.67 billion in October from $2.47 billion in the same month last year.
From January to October, cash remittances went up by 4.6 percent to $24.86 billion from $23.77 billion in the same period last year.
“By type of worker, cash remittances from land-based and sea-based workers increased by 3.8 percent to $19.4 billion,
and eight percent to $5.4 billion, respectively,” the BSP said.
The US registered the highest share during the 10-month period with 37.6 percent, followed by Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Japan, United Arab Emirates, 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 central bank said.
The BSP has retained the growth target for both personal and cash remittances at three percent for this year and next year.
Michael Ricafort, chief economist at Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., attributed the faster growth in remittances in October to the lifting of the deployment ban of Filipino workers in Kuwait as well as the seasonal increase usually posted in September and October.
“The faster year-to-date growth in OFW remittances could be partly attributed to the lifting of the brief ban in the deployment of OFWs bound for Kuwait in the early part of 2018, thereby resulting to a lower base/denominator effects that resulted to higher year-on-year growth for most months of 2019,” Ricafort said.
Source: https://www.philstar.com/business/2019/12/17/1977531/remittances-hit-10-month-high-october#ZU2tllSZJVJtsIQU.99