Remittances total $1.8B in January – BSP

Only slight increase of 0.5%

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) yesterday said it registered $1.8billion worth of cash remittances for the month of January, a slight 0.5 percent higher compared to the same period in 2014.

Cash remittances are remitted through the formal banking system and easily captured by the BSP. As for personal remittances or transfers via non-formal channels including the “padala” networks, this amounted to $2 billion which was 0.2 percent more year- on-year.

The central bank said cash remittances from land-based and sea-based workers amounted to $1.4 billion and $ 500 million, respectively, sourced mostly from overseas Filipinos working in the US, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Canada. The BSP has a caveat usually, that remittances sent through the US come from various cities via correspondent banks and money couriers. It explained that these transfers “cannot be disaggregated by actual country source” and just point to the US as originating country.

For the month of January, personal remittances

from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more amounted to $1.5 billion. OFWs from sea-based and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year sent home $500 million.

“(The sustained) demand for skilled Filipino manpower contributed to the steady inflow of remittances,” noted the BSP. Initial data from Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) showed 26.3 percent of total approved job orders of 77,009 in January have been process. These jobs or processed contracts which were 6.7 percent higher compared to the same period last year, are for sectors such as service, production, and professional, technical and related workers. The destinations are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Taiwan, and the United Arab Emirates.

The BSP added, “the continued efforts of bank and non-bank remittance service providers to expand their international and domestic market coverage through their network of remittance business partners worldwide provided support to steady remittance flows.”

Last year, cash remittances reached $24.3 billion, up 5.8 percent year-on-year and on target of the BSP’s five percent projection for 2014. Personal remittances amounted to $26.9 billion which was 6.2 percent more compared to 2013.