Strong growth in OFW remittances recorded in August

Filipino domestic helpers line up to send money at a remittance center in the central district of Hong Kong in this 2008 file photo. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reported on Monday, October 16, 2017, of strong growth in remittances from Filipinos based offshore in August. (AFP FILE PHOTO)

Remittances of foreign currency by expatriate Filipinos continues to rise as of August 2017, thanks to sustained inflows from workers with both long- and short-term employment contracts, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said on Monday.

In a press statement, BSP said personal remittances of overseas Filipinos continued to rise in the eight month of this year, posting 9.4 percent growth from the same period last year year to reach $2.8 billion.

This brought personal remittances for the first eight months of 2017 to $20.7 billion, higher by 6.4 percent relative to the year-ago level.

“The increase in personal remittances was driven largely by the sustained inflow of transfers from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more at $16 billion, and remittances from sea-based and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year at $4.2 billion,” the central bank said.

Personal remittances represent the sum of net compensation of employees (for example, gross earnings of overseas Filipino workers with work contracts of less than one year, including all sea-based workers, less taxes, social contributions, and transportation and travel expenditures in their host countries); personal transfers (like all current transfers in cash or in kind by overseas Filipino workers with work contracts of one year or more as well as other household-to-household transfers between Filipinos who have migrated abroad and their families in the Philippines); and capital transfers between households (for example, the provision of resources for capital formation purposes, such as for construction of residential houses, between resident and non-resident households without anything of economic value being supplied in return).

Meanwhile, cash remittances from overseas Filipinos coursed through banks rose by 7.8 percent to $2.5 billion in August 2017. By country source, the primary contributors to the rise in cash remittances during the month are the United Arab Emirates (UAE), United States, Singapore and Qatar.

For the first eight months of 2017, cash remittances reached $18.6 billion or a 5.4 percent increase compared to the level registered in the same period last year.

The sustained influx of remittances was observed from both land-based workers ($14.7 billion) and sea-based workers ($3.9 billion) which grew by 6 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively.

The bulk of cash remittances (82.5 percent of total cash remittances in the first eight months of 2017) came from the United States, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Singapore, Japan, United Kingdom, Qatar, Kuwait, Germany and Hong Kong.

The BSP explained, however, that 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. Also remittances coursed through money couriers cannot be disaggregated by actual country source and are lodged under the country where the main offices are located, which, in many cases, is in the US. Therefore, the US would show up to be the main sources of remittances because banks attribute the origin of funds to the most immediate source.                                                                                   /kga