MONEY sent home by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) rose to $3.20 billion in August, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported on Tuesday, 3.3 percent higher compared to the year-earlier $3.10 billion.
The amount was, however, lower than the year-to-date high of $3.43 billion posted in July.
August’s increase, the BSP said in a statement, “was due to higher remittances from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more and sea- and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year.”
Year to date, personal remittances rose by 3.0 percent to $24.74 billion from the $24.01 billion recorded in January-August 2023.
Money sent home via banks alone totaled $2.89 billion in August, 3.2 percent up from $2.80 billion a year earlier but lower than the $3.08 billion posted in July.
“The growth in cash remittances in August 2024 was due to the growth in receipts from land- and sea-based workers,” the BSP said.
Year to date, cash remittances rose 2.9 percent to $22.22 billion from $21.58 billion.
Cash remittance growth for the eight-month period was mainly due to inflows from the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Singapore, the BSP said.
By country source, the US continued to account for the biggest share (41.3 percent), followed by Singapore (7.0 percent), Saudi Arabia (6.1 percent), the United Kingdom (4.9 percent) and Japan (4.8 percent).
Rounding out the top 10 were the UAE (4.2 percent), Canada (3.5 percent), Qatar (2.9 percent), Taiwan (2.7 percent) and South Korea (2.6 percent).
Sought for comment, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. chief economist Michael Ricafort said the month-on-month drop could be attributed to the peso’s having strengthened to P56-P57 against the dollar compared to P58:$1 in July.
This lowered the peso value of OFW remittances but slightly boosted year-on-year growth, he added.
“For the coming months, single-digit/modest growth in OFW remittances could still continue as OFW families still need to cope up with relatively higher inflation locally that would require the sending of more remittances,” Ricafort continued.
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