October 16, 2024 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Filipinos working abroad sent home $3.2 billion in August as school opening-related expenses lingered during the period.
Data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed that personal remittances – the sum of net compensation of employees, personal transfers and capital transfers between households – reached $3.2 billion in August.
This is 3.3 percent higher than the $3.1 billion remitted in the same month in 2023, but slightly lower than the $3.43 billion recorded in July.
The BSP said the increase was brought about by the 3.7 percent rise in remittances sent by land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more, to $2.47 billion.
Similarly, remittances from sea and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year inched up by 1.4 percent to $670 million.
For the eight-month period, personal remittances grew by three percent to $24.74 billion from $24.01 billion in the same period in 2023.
Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. chief economist Michael Ricafort said there is a seasonal increase in remittances to partly finance tuition payments and other school opening-related expenses that could have lasted until early August.
During the month, the peso-dollar exchange rate declined to the 56-57 level versus the dollar, as against the 58:$1 in July, which reduced the peso equivalent of remittances on a monthly basis.
Moving forward, Ricafort said modest growth in remittances would still continue as Filipinos in the country need to cope with inflation, although this could be offset by the still elevated peso exchange rate versus the greenback.
On the other hand, cash remittances coursed through banks also improved by 3.2 percent to $2.89 billion in August from $2.8 billion in the comparative period last year.
The expansion in cash remittances in August was due to the growth in receipts from land and sea-based workers.
Cash remittances from land-based workers increased by 3.9 percent to $2.28 billion while the amount sent home by sea-based workers went up by 0.7 percent to $600 million.
For the January to August period, cash remittances picked up by 2.9 percent to reach $22.22 billion from the 2023 level of $21.58 billion.
“The growth in cash remittances from the US, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Singapore contributed mainly to the increase in remittances in January to August,” the BSP said.
As to overall remittances for the eight-month period, the US topped the list with a share of 41.3 percent, followed by Singapore with seven percent and Saudi Arabia with 6.1 percent.
Other top sources include the UK, Japan, UAE, Canada, Qatar, Taiwan and Korea.
Remittances from OFWs have consistently been the fourth largest in the world after India, Mexico and China, amounting to more than $40 billion per year.
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