Remittances grow 5.9% to $1.8B in January – Bangko Sentral

By DANESSA O. RIVERA, GMA News

Published March 17, 2014 4:10pm

(Updated 5:07 pm.m) Coming from a high volume of money transfers during the Christmas and New Year holidays, plus the added liquidity in response to devastation caused by Typhoon Yolanda in November, remittances by overseas Filipinos slowed down in January though still higher from a year earlier.

Cash remittances or money sent through banks and transfer agents rose by 5.9 percent to $1.799 billion from $1.699 billion in the same comparable period, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said in a statement Monday.

But the amount of transfers in January numbers was down 18.22 percent for $2.2 billion in December 2013, Bangko Sentral reported, saying the level of remittances usually drops following the year-end holidays.

University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P) School of Economics dean Peter Lee U told GMA News Online the growth in remittances primarily is a good sign.

"We maintained the same growth momentum as in January last year," he said.

Though remittances in January are typically lower compared with December, it should not be analyzed based on seasonality, U noted.

The remittance flows "remained resilient, underpinned by the sustained demand for Filipino manpower overseas, particularly the skilled workers," Bangko Sentral noted.

Preliminary data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration showed 24,187 job orders were processed mainly for Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Taiwan, Kuwait and Qatar.

Cash remittances in January came mostly from the United States, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Japan and Canada, Bangko Sentral data showed.

Personal remittances – which include transfers in cash and in kind through banks and hand-carried deliveries – totaled $2.002 billion in October, up 6.8 percent. – Danessa Rivera/VS, GMA News

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