Remittances up 2.7% to $3.15 B in January
Remittances up 2.7% to $3.15 B in January
Personal remittances from Overseas Filipinos (OFs) went up 2.7 percent to $3.15 billion in the first month of 2024 from the $3.07 billion registered in the same month last year.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said the increase in personal remittances in January 2024 was driven by increased remittances from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more and sea-and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year.
Workers with contracts of one year or more remitted $2.44 billion in January 2024, up 3.0 percent from the $2.37 billion they sent in the same month of 2023 while workers with contract of less than a year sent $0.64 billion or 1.5 percent more than the $0.63 billion in January 2023.
Of the personal remittances from OFs, cash remittances coursed through banks increased by 2.7 percent to $2.84 billion in January 2024 from $2.76 billion registered in the comparable month a year ago.
The BSP said the growth in cash remittances in January 2024 was primarily due to increased receipts from both land- and sea-based workers.
Cash remittances of land-based workers grew by 3.1 percent to $2.25 billion last January from the $2.19 billion in the same month last year while sea-based workers’ remittances were almost the same as last year at $0.58 billion.
The growth in cash remittances from the United States (U.S.), Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E), and Singapore contributed mainly to the increase in remittances in January 2024.
In terms of the countries where these remittances originated, the US had the highest share of overall remittances during the period at 41.8 percent, followed by Singapore (7.3 percent) and Saudi Arabia (6.0 percent).
Remittances from Japan accounted for 5.8 percent of the pie, followed by the United Kingdom at 4.8 percent, UAE at 3.3 percent, Canada at 3.1 percent, Taiwan with 2.8 percent, Qatar with 2.7 percent, and Malaysia at 2.4 percent.
