OFW remittances drop for first time in 12 years

Money sent home by Filipinos working or living abroad through banks declined for the first time in over 12 years in August, according to a report from GMA News.

Cash remittances amounted to $2.04 billion or 0.6 percent lower than the $2.06 billion recorded during the same month in 2014, according to figures released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Thursday.

Historical data posted on the central bank’s website show that cash remittances from overseas Filipinos last registered a monthly drop (10.9 percent) in April 2003.

Personal remittances, which include cash and inkind items sent through other channels, also declined by 0.8 percent year-on-year to $2.26 billion from $2.28 billion.

“This was partly due to the depreciation of some currencies against the US dollar, particularly the euro, Canadian dollar and Japanese yen, which reduced the dollar equivalent of remittances,” BSP Officer-in-Charge Vicente Aquino said.

Cash remittances received in September largely came from the US, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, UK, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong and Canada.

For the eight months to August, cash transfers reached $16.21 billion or 4.1 percent above the $15.57 billion booked a year earlier. Personal remittances, meanwhile, increased by 3.9 percent to $17.93 billion from $17.27 billion.

“The steady deployment of overseas Filipino workers continued to provide support to remittance inflows,” Aquino noted.

Job orders from abroad totalled 584,816 from January to August, according to preliminary data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration.

These were mostly intended mainly for service, production, and professional, technical and related workers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Taiwan and Hong Kong.