April remittances dive 16%

Personal remittances from OFW amounted to $2.27 billion in April 2020, 16.1 percent lower than the $2.71 billion recorded in April 2019

Money which overseas Filipino workers (OFW) sent home to the country dropped in April to mirror the severe effects of the global pandemic on remittances, latest data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed.

“Personal remittances from (OFW) amounted to $2.27 billion in April 2020, 16.1 percent lower than the $2.71 billion recorded in April 2019,” the BSP said.

“This brought the cumulative remittances for the first four months of the year to $10.49 billion, a slight decrease of 2.9 percent from the $10.81 billion recorded in the comparable period in 2019,” it added.

Repatriation grows

According to the central bank, this development may be traced to the decline in remittances from both land-based workers with contracts of one-year or more and sea- and land-based workers with work contracts of less than a year.

Likewise, cash remittances coursed through banks during the month dipped 16.2 percent from $2.44 billion to only $2.04 billion owing to the unexpected repatriation of OFW deployed in countries heavily affected by the pandemic.

“For the period January to April 2020, cash remittances amounted to $9.44 billion, 3 percent lower than the $9.73 billion registered in the comparative period last year,” it said.

US still top forex source

By country origin, the US took the bulk or 39.6 percent of the overall stock for the first four months of the year, followed by Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Japan, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Canada, Qatar, Hong Kong and Korea.

“The combined remittances from these countries accounted for 79.1 percent of total cash remittances,” it quickly added.

BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno earlier said that they now view a five percent contraction in OFW transfers for the year, subject for another review as the full extent of the global health crisis remains uncertain.