Remittances from Filipinos Abroad Lowest Since June, BSP Data Shows
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- Personal and cash remittances from Filipinos working and living abroad have declined to its lowest level since June 2022, the BSP reported.
- For February 2023, $2.86 billion worth of personal remittances were processed. It is 6.87% lower compared to January’s $3.07 billion recorded.
- Cash remittances also went down by almost 7%. From January’s $2.76 billion, February has recorded only $2.57 billion.
Both personal and cash remittances from Filipinos working and living abroad have declined to its lowest level since June 2022, data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed.
Personal remittances, which cover cash sent through banks and informal channels as well as remittances in kind, are computed as the sum of the net compensation of employees, personal transfers, and capital transfers between households. While cash remittances refer to cash sent by land-based and sea-based workers through the banking system only.
As of the Central Bank’s data, in terms of country sources, the US posted the highest share of overall remittances during the said period, followed by Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and Japan.
Personal Remittances
For February 2023, $2.86 billion worth of personal remittances were processed. It is 6.87% lower compared to January’s $3.07 billion recorded.
However, it is 2.4% higher compared to the $2.79 billion recorded in the same month last year. The increase, according to the BSP, was due to higher remittances sent by 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.
“The expansion in February 2023 remittances increased the cumulative personal remittances to US$5.93 billion in the first two months of 2023, which is 3.0 percent higher than the US$5.76 billion in the comparable period in 2022,” the monetary agency explained.
Cash Remittances
Cash remittances, like personal remittances, also went down by almost 7%. From January’s $2.76 billion, February has recorded only $2.57 billion.
Nonetheless, the BSP still looked at the bright side as “cash remittances coursed through banks rose by 2.4 percent to US$2.57 billion in February 2023 from US$2.51 billion in the comparable month a year ago.”
As per the country’s Central Bank, the year-to-date increase was due to the growth in receipts from land- and seabased workers:
“On a year-to-date basis, cash remittances coursed through banks in January-February 2023 amounted to US$5.33 billion, up by 3.0 percent from US$5.18 billion recorded in the same period a year-ago.”
In 2021, it can be recalled that during the series of lockdowns brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, the remittances of Filipinos working and living abroad started to rise.
This article is published on BitPinas: Remittances from Filipinos Abroad Lowest Since June, BSP Data Shows
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