Philippine remittances dip 16.1 pct in April

Source: Xinhua | 2020-07-16

Personal remittances, or the money sent home by overseas Filipinos, amounted to 2.276 billion U.S. dollars in April 2020, 16.1 percent lower than that of April 2019, the Philippine central bank said on Wednesday.

This brought the cumulative remittances for the first four months of the year to 10.494 billion U.S. dollars, a slight decrease of 2.9 percent from the same period in 2019, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said.

According to the BSP, personal remittances from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more declined to 1.677 billion U.S. dollars in April 2020, 17.9 percent lower than the same month in 2019.

Similarly, the BSP said remittances from sea-based workers and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year fell by 10.2 percent to 0.547 billion U.S. dollars in April 2020 from 0.609 billion U.S. dollars a year ago.

The BSP said the decline in cash remittances was attributed to the unexpected repatriation of some overseas Filipinos deployed in countries heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and temporary closure or limited operating hours of some banks and institutions from both the sending and receiving ends that provide money transfer services during the lockdown.

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 in 2019, 3.9 percent higher than the number of 2018.

The Asian Development Bank has projected the remittances from overseas Filipino workers, equivalent to 9 percent of the gross domestic product, to slow this year due to COVID-19.