Philippine remittances in January, February climb 5 pct

Source: Xinhua | 2020-05-16

Personal remittances or the money sent home by overseas Filipinos amounted to 2.62 billion U.S. dollars in February 2020, up 2.6 percent compared with the same period last year, the Philippine central bank said Friday.

On a year-to-date basis, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said remittances for the first two months of 2020 grew by 5 percent to 5.566 billion U.S. dollars from the previous year's level of 5.302 billion U.S. dollars.

BSP data showed personal remittances from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more rose to 2 billion U.S. dollars, 3.5 percent higher than 1.9 billion U.S. dollars recorded in February 2019.

Meanwhile, the BSP said remittances from sea-based workers and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year declined by 0.9 percent to 0.56 billion U.S. dollars from a year ago.

The government estimates the number of overseas Filipino workers at 12 million, accounting for one-tenth of the country's population.

BSP data showed that personal remittances sent home by overseas Filipinos in 2019 reached a record high of 33.5 billion U.S. dollars, 3.9 percent higher than the remittances recorded in 2018.

Remittances from overseas Filipino workers are forecast to decline as industries such as tourism bear the brunt of lower demand due to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 25,000 overseas Filipino workers, both sea-based and land-based, have been repatriated due to the pandemic, data from the Department of Foreign Affairs said.

The Asian Development Bank has also projected the remittances from overseas Filipino workers to fall this year due to COVID-19.