Sun.Star Cebu

First quarter remittance­s grow 2.3% to $8.65 billion

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MONEY sent home by overseas Filipinos rose 2.3 percent to US8.646 billion in the first quarter of 2022 from $8.454 billion in the same period last year.

March remittance­s alone reached $2.888 billion, 3.1 percent higher than the $2.801 billion in the same month last year.

According to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas on Monday, May 16, 2022, the increase in personal remittance­s in March was due to remittance­s sent by land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more, which grew by 3.7 percent to $2.195 billion from $2.116 billion in the same month last year, and sea- and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year, which increased by 1.4 percent to $625 million from $616 million a year ago.

Similarly, cash remittance­s coursed through banks grew by 3.2 percent to $2.594 billion in March 2022 from $2.514 billion registered in the same month in 2021. The expansion in cash remittance­s was due to the growth in receipts from land-based and sea-based workers, which increased by 3.7 percent (to $2.021 billion from $1.948 billion) and 1.3 percent (to $573 million from $566 million), respective­ly.

On a year-to-date basis, cash remittance­s amounted to $7.77 billion in the first quarter of 2022, higher by 2.4 percent than the year-ago level of $7.593 billion.

The growth in cash remittance­s from the United States (US), Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and Saudi Arabia contribute­d largely to the increase in remittance­s in the first quarter of 2022.

Meanwhile, in terms of country sources, the US registered the highest share of overall remittance­s at 41.5 percent in the first quarter of 2022, followed by Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Taiwan, Qatar, and Malaysia.

The combined remittance­s from these top 10 countries accounted for 79.1 percent of total cash remittance­s during the period.

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