Remittances up 5.1% in February — BSP data

Remittances from overseas Filipinos posted growth in February after falling in the past two months,  data released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Thursday showed.

Central bank data show cash remittances — money transfers coursed through banks — rose 5.1% to $2.477 billion in February from $2.358 billion the same month in 2020.

Cash remittances from land-based workers climbed 7.8% to $1.982 billion, while that of sea-based workers fell by 4.6% to $495 million.

Year-to-date, cash remittances were up 1.5% to $5.080 billion from $5.006 billion recorded in the same period last year.

The BSP attributed the growth in cash remittances for the first two months of the year from the United States, Malaysia, and Singapore.

In terms of country sources, the US accounted for 41%, followed by Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Qatar.

Combined remittances from the top 10 countries accounted for 78.3% of total cash remittances.

Meanwhile, personal remittances — the sum of transfers sent in cash or in-kind via informal channels — grew 5.3% to $2.761 billion from $2.623 billion.

Year-to-date, personal remittances increased by 1.6% to $5.665 billion from $5.566 billion.

Personal remittances from land-based workers with work contracts of a year or more jumped 7.8% to $2.152 billion, while those from sea-based workers and land-based workers with contracts less than a year fell 4.6% to $540 million.

Moving forward, remittances are expected to continue their upward pace given the low base seen in 2020 due to the hard lockdowns implemented across the globe due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"For the coming months, OFW remittances could mathematically post relatively larger positive year-on-year growth rates especially from April-May 2021, amid the low base/denominator effects a year ago in view of the anniversary of the hard lockdowns/stay-at-home orders in major OFW host countries," the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) said in its Hexagon Perspective.

The RCBC noted, however, that any further recovery in OFW remittances in the coming months would be dependent on the recovery of economies of the major host countries. — RSJ, GMA News