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Money sent home by overseas Filipino workers (OFW) rose to its highest level in three months in October, but was not enough to increase the amount for the year to date, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said on Tuesday ( BSP).
Central bank data showed that personal remittances (personal transfers in cash or in kind and capital transfers between households) reached $ 3.04 billion in the 10th month, an increase of 5.4 percent and 2.5 percent from $ 2.88 billion in September and $ 2.96 billion in October 2019, respectively. .
The amount was the largest since $ 3.08 billion in July.
In a statement, the BSP attributed the spike to rising remittances from land workers with employment contracts of one year or more to $ 2.374 billion in the month, 3.3 percent more than the $ 2.298 billion a year ago. .
“Similarly, remittances from maritime and land workers with employment contracts of less than a year increased slightly by 1.2 percent to $ 612 million in October 2020 from $ 605 million a year ago,” he said.
The latest figure failed to raise the count from January to October, which only reached $ 27.34 billion, a 1 percent drop from $ 27.61 billion in the same period in 2019.
Cash remittances, which only count the money that passes through banks, reached $ 274 billion in October, a jump of 5.61 percent from the $ 2.60 billion the previous month and 2.5 percent. percent more than the $ 2.67 billion the previous year.
The BSP attributed this expansion to the growth of remittances from land workers ($ 2,186 billion) and from the sea ($ 561.2 million) by 3.3 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively.
During the first 10 months, cash remittances increased 0.9 percent to $ 24.63 billion from $ 24.85 billion in the same period last year.
By country source, annual remittances from Saudi Arabia, Japan, United States
The United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Germany and Kuwait decreased, while those of the United States, Singapore, Qatar, Oman, Hong Kong and Taiwan increased.
The United States had the largest share of total OFW remittances from January to October at 40.2 percent. It was followed by Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Hong Kong, Qatar and Taiwan.
“Combined remittances from these countries accounted for 78.7 percent of total cash remittances,” said Bangko Sentral.
In a comment, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) chief economist Michael Ricafort said remittances could still increase as Filipinos abroad could use their savings to send money home at Christmas.
“Therefore, OFW remittances for 2020 could average close to 0 percent, still considered decent despite the adverse economic effects of Covid-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) and better than previous estimates, of [the] Average decrease of 0.9 percent from January to October 2020 ”, he added.
This could be offset by the increase in the number of OFW repatriated to the country, Ricafort said.
The central bank projects that these inflows will be reduced by 2 percent this year, “even as real remittances for the year to date improved with a smaller contraction of 1.4 percent as of September 2020, as the Covid cases -19 have increased in some recipient countries and closures were implemented again. “
Next year, he expects remittances to recover by 4 percent.
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