Remittances to shrink less than expected — BSP’s Diokno

Despite the challenging overseas labor environment brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said Friday money sent home by Filipinos abroad will decline less than what it earlier estimated.

“With four months to go before the end of the year, there is a strong likelihood that the 2020 OF (overseas Filipinos) remittances would shrink by less than 5%,” BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno told reporters in a Viber group message.

This, after the January to August personal remittances — the sum of transfers sent in cash or in-kind through informal channels — declined by 2.6% to $21.414 billion from $21.995 billion year-on-year

“Year-to-date, remittances from Filipino workers contracted by 2.6%. That’s good news. That’s lower than BSP’s revised forecast of negative 5%,” Diokno said..

The BSP earlier forecast that the remittances for the whole 2020 could contract by 5% due to the pandemic.

“Other analysts predict that OF remittances would contract by as much as 20%,” Diokno said.

For January to August, cash remittances — money transfers coursed through banks — stood at $19.285 billion, down 2.6% from $19.808 billion last year.

In terms of cumulative share, receipts from the US registered the highest share to total cash remittances year-to-date at 40.2% followed by Singapore, the United Kingdom, Japan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Canada, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Qatar.

The combined remittances from the top 10 countries accounted for 78.9% of total cash remittances. — RSJ, GMA News