Remittances rose 6.7% to $2.38B in September

Marking the start of the holiday season, cash sent home by Filipinos living and working abroad in September grew 6.7 percent year-on-year to $2.38 billion, the highest monthly amount so far this year.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas data released Tuesday showed that cash remittances from Filipinos overseas last September increased from $2.23 billion a year ago.

The remittances in September were a nine-month high following December last year’s record $2.47 billion.

The year-on-year growth in remittances, however, slowed last September compared with August’s 16.3-percent jump, the fastest in more than two years.

In a statement, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. said the top countries that contributed to September’s cash remittances growth were Japan, Kuwait, Qatar, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.

In September, remittances from land-based workers rose 11.9 percent, while those from sea-based employees dropped 10.5 percent, Tetangco said.

“The declining remittances from sea-based workers may be attributed to stiffer competition in the supply of seafarers. A growing number of officers and ratings (mariners without a certificate of competence) are recruited from East Asia (China and India) and Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Croatia and Latvia),” Tetangco explained.

At the end of the first nine months, cash remittances totaled $20.02 billion, up 4.8 percent from $19.1 billion as of end-September last year.

Year-to-date remittance growth improved as of end-September compared with 4.6 percent as of August, although slower than the 6-percent increase a year ago.

Land-based workers’ cash remittances grew by 7.1 percent to reach $15.8 billion. Meanwhile, cash remittances from sea-based workers declined slightly by 2.9 percent to $4.2 billion during the January to September period, Tetangco said.

Four-fifths of end-September cash remittances were from Filipinos in Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the UAE, the United Kingdom and the US, Tetangco added. —Ben O. de Vera