Bangko Sentral: Cash remittances expand by 6% in August

Cash remittances expanded by 6 percent to $2.053 billion in August from $1.938 billion a year earlier on continued deployment of Filipino workers abroad, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Wednesday.
 
From January to August, cash remittances grew by 5.8 percent to $15.538 billion from $14.684 billion in the same period last year, central bank data show.

The August remittance numbers is still a healthy growth, Bank of the Philippine Islands economist Nicholas Mapa told GMA News Online.

"It continues growing at a healthy pace on continued deployment of overseas Filipino workers," he said.

"This is helping us in economic growth and building foreign reserves," he noted.

Cash remittances from land-based and sea-based workers increased by 5 percent to $10.3 billion and 8.5 percent to $3.2 billion, respectively, in the seven months to July.
 
"The strong demand for skilled Filipino workers overseas remained a key driver in the sustained growth of remittance flows," a Bangko Sentral statement read.

Personal remittances
 
Data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) showed job orders reached 619,388, of which 38.6 percent were processed job orders intended for service, production, and professional, technical and related employment in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Taiwan, and Qatar.
 
About 79 percent of the cash remittances largely came from the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Japan, Canada, and Hong Kong.
 
Supporting the sustained flow of remittances are the continued efforts of bank and non-bank remittance service providers to expand international and domestic coverage through tie-ups and establishments of remittance centers abroad, the central bank. 
 
Personal remittances grew by 7.2 percent to $2.274 billion in August from $2.122 billion in the same month last year.

In the first eight months, it rose 6.5 percent to $17.232 billion from $16.185 billion a year earlier.

Cash remittances are coursed through banks while personal remittances would measure the total amount of remittance flows into the country, including cash and non-cash items through formal and informal channels.
 
"The increase in personal remittances was driven largely by the steady increase in transfers from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more (5.2 percent), and sea-based and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year (8 percent)," Bangko Sentral said. – VS, GMA News