Filipino expats sent home more dollars in August

Dollars sent home by expatriate Filipinos continued to rise in August as both land- and sea-based workers remitted more cash to their local beneficiaries, according to the latest data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

The BSP said that personal remittances from Filipinos either working or living abroad hit $2.9 billion in August 2019, up 4.2 percent from the $2.8 billion reported in the same period last year.

This brought personal remittances for the first eight months of 2019 to $22 billion, up by 3.6 percent from $21.2 billion a year ago.

“The steady growth in personal remittances during the first eight months of 2019 drew support from the remittance inflows from land-based overseas Filipino workers with work contracts of one year or more, which aggregated $16.8 billion from $16.3 billion in the same period last year,” the BSP said.

The data also showed that remittances from overseas workers—which are said to account for an estimated 10 percent of domestic economic activity, especially consumption—grew for every month of 2019, except for a 2.7-percent decline in June.

Inflows from the compensation of sea-based workers and land-based workers with short-term contracts also contributed to this growth and totaled $4.7 billion from $4.4 billion a year ago, the monetary regulator added.

Likewise, cash remittances coursed through banks—which exclude transfers in cash or in kind by Filipinos who have migrated abroad—rose to $2.6 billion in August 2019, from $2.5 billion last year.

This brought cash remittances for the first eight months this year to $19.8 billion from $19.1 billion recorded in the same period last year. Cash remittances from land-based and sea-based workers rose by 2.8 percent to $15.5 billion and 8.2 percent to $4.3 billion, respectively, for January-August 2019.

By country source, the US registered the highest share of overall remittances for January to August 2019 at 37 percent. It was followed by Saudi Arabia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, the UK, Japan, Canada, Hong Kong, Germany and Kuwait.

The combined remittances from these countries accounted for 78.4 percent of total cash remittances from January to August 2019. —DAXIM L. LUCAS