OFW remittances grow 4% in Sept.

The cumulative remittances increased by 3.1 percent in the first three-quarters of 2022 to $26.49 billion from $25.70 billion registered in the comparable period in 2021

Personal remittances from overseas Filipino workers in September 2022 reached $3.15 billion, four percent higher than the $3.03 billion recorded in the same month last year, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas data showed Tuesday.

According to BSP, the cumulative remittances increased by 3.1 percent in the first three-quarters of 2022 to $26.49 billion from $25.70 billion registered in the comparable period in 2021.

Cash remittances up by 3.8%

Similarly, cash remittances coursed through banks grew by 3.8 percent to $2.84 billion in September 2022 from $2.74 billion recorded in the same month last year.

On a year-to-date basis, cash remittances amounted to $23.83 billion in January-September 2022, up by 3.1 percent from $23.12 billion recorded in the same period last year.

“The increase in personal remittances in September 2022 was due to 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 BSP explained.

Growth remittances per country

Data from BSP show that the growth in cash remittances from the United States, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Qatar contributed significantly to the rise in remittances in the first three quarters of 2022.

In terms of sources by country, the United States posted the highest share of overall remittances in the first nine months of 2022 by 41.7 percent.

Singapore and Saudi Arabia followed with 6.9 percent and 5.9 percent, respectively.

Remittances to keep rising

Economists attributed the continued growth in cash remittances to the need to pay higher prices locally for overseas Filipino workers and their dependents.

Michael Ricafort, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. chief economist, said that the increased remittances may also fuel household spending and consumption in the last quarter as inflation accelerates.

“The modest single-digit growth in OFW remittances in recent months may be partly attributed to elevated US and global inflation and higher interest rates in recent months that somewhat slowed down or weighed on the recovery in the global economy and also partly weighed on both OFW employment and incomes, especially in host countries,” Ricafort said in a report.