July remittances up 6% to $2.1B

Filipinos abroad sent home $2.063 billion in July—the biggest amount of remittances on a monthly basis so far this year.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) data released Monday showed that cash remittances coursed through banks last July exceeded by 6 percent the $1.946 billion sent home by Filipinos overseas during the same month last year. It was the second straight month that remittances exceeded the $2-billion mark.

From January to July, remittances totaled $13.485 billion, up 5.8 percent from $12.746 billion in the same seven-month period last year.

The BSP noted that remittances from land-based workers grew 5 percent to $10.3 billion, while those from sea-based employees rose 8.5 percent to $3.2 billion.

Almost four-fifths of July’s remittances were from Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States, BSP disclosed.