Remittances fall to 5-month low in February

Personal remittances by overseas Filipinos fell to a five-month low in February, albeit still higher than the same month last year, data released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Monday revealed.

According to the central bank, personal remittances — the sum of transfers sent in cash or in-kind via informal channels — were registered at $2.557 billion in February.

This is lower than the $2.745 billion in January this year and the lowest since the $2.490 billion recorded in September 2018, but 1.2% higher than the $2.528 billion in February.

The latest figures brought the year-to-date personal remittances to $5.302 billion, 2.3% higher than the $5.182 billion in the comparable period last year.

Remittances from sea-based and land-based workers with contracts of less than a year rose by 8.5% to $0.57 billion from $0.53 billion in February 2018.

"This compensated for the 0.43% decline in the personal remittances from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more, to $1.93 billion from $1.94 billion," the BSP said in an accompanying statement.

Meanwhile, cash remittances — money transfers coursed through banks — grew 1.5% to $2.301 billion from $2.267 billion the same month in 2018.

Year-to-date cash remittances noted a growth of 3% to $4.784 billion from the $4.647 billion the comparable period in 2018.

"This growth was supported by the increase in remittances from both land-based ($3.73 billion) and sea-based ($1.06 billion) workers, which rose by 1% and 10.5%, respectively," said the BSP.

"By country source, the United States registered the highest share of overall remittances for the period at 35.5%," it elaborated.

Other top sources during the period were Saudi Arabia, Singapore, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Japan, Canada, Qatar, Hong Kong, and Germany.

"The combined remittances from these countries accounted for 77.3% of total cash remittances for January to February 2019," said the BSP. —LDF, GMA News