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By APD writer Melo M. Acuña
MANILA, June 17 (APD) – The country’s central bank, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reported growth by 3.7 percent year-on-year in remittances for the first four months of the year.
In a statement released an hour ago, the BSP said personal remittances from overseas Filipinos grew from US$2.6 billion in April 2018 to US$2.7 in April 2019.
The BSP said remittances for the past four months amounted to US10.8 billion, which is higher by 3.7 percent than the U$10.4 level recorded during the same period last year.
BSP Governor Benjamin E. Diokno said the continued growth in personal remittances during the first four months of 2019 was due to steady remittance inflows from land-based Overseas Filipinos with contracts of one year or more, which amounted to US$8.2 billion from US$8.1 in the same period last year.
Inflows from the compensation of land and sea-based workers with short-term contracts also contributed to this growth and reached US$2.3 billion from US$2.1 billion a year ago.
Cash remittances for Overseas Filipinos coursed through banks amounted to US$2.4 billion in April 2019, an increase of 4 percent year-on-year from US$2.3 billion recorded in April 2018.
The growth was supported by remittances from land-based (US$1.8 billion) which rose by 2.2 percent and sea-based (US$0.6 billion) workers which rose by 10.6 percent. Cash remittances from January to April rose to US$9.7 billion which is higher by 4.1 percent compared to the January-April 2018 level of US$9.4 billion.
The United States registered the highest share of overall remittances from January to April at 35.9 percent. It was followed by Saudi Arabia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Hong Kong, Qatar, and Germany. The remittances from these countries and region accounted for at least 768 percent of the total cash remittances from January to April 2019.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
