March dollar remittances rose for second straight month as eased travel curbs boosted OFW deployment

MANILA, Philippines — Expatriate Filipinos sent home more dollars in March as the deployment of workers increased with the easing of travel restrictions, according to the central bank.

In a statement, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said personal remittances from the country’s overseas citizens amounted to $2.801 billion in March 2021, which was higher by 5.6 percent than the $2.652 billion recorded in the same month last year.

“This is the second consecutive month that remittances were higher than last year’s levels, reflecting mainly the easing of travel restrictions, re-opening of borders to foreign workers, and progress in COVID-19 vaccine roll out in many advanced countries,” the monetary authority said.

Personal remittances from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more grew 5 percent to $2.115 billion from the $2.014 billion recorded in March 2020, while remittances from sea-based workers and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year rose by 4.5 percent to $617 million in March 2021 from $591 million a year ago.

On a cumulative basis, remittances for the first quarter of the year reached $8.454 billion, representing a 2.9 percent growth year-on-year from the $8.218 billion recorded in the comparable period in 2020.

Likewise, cash remittances from overseas Filipinos coursed through banks rose by 4.9 percent to $2.514 billion in March 2021 from $2.397 billion in the comparable month a year ago.

In particular, cash remittances from land-based workers increased by 5 percent to $1.948 billion, while those from sea-based workers rose by 4.5 percent to $566 million.

For the first three months of 2021, cash remittances amounted to $7.593 billion, an increase of 2.6 percent compared to the $7.403 billion level in the same period last year.

The growth in cash remittances for the January–March 2021 period came largely from the United States l, Malaysia, and Singapore.

In terms of country sources, the US registered the highest share to overall remittances at 40.8 percent for the first three months, followed by Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Qatar, Taiwan,l and Malaysia.

The combined remittances from these top ten countries accounted for 78.2 percent of total cash remittances.

The central bank noted that there are limitations on the remittance data by source since a common practice of remittance centers in various cities abroad is to course remittances through correspondent banks, most of which are located in the US.

Therefore, the US would appear to be the main source of remittances because banks attribute the origin of funds to the most immediate source.