Money sent home by overseas Filipinos (OFs) increased by 2.2 percent to $3.13 billion in June from only $3.06 billion in the same month last year, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said on Tuesday.
The rise in personal remittances during the month was traced to higher remittances sent by land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more and by sea- and land-based workers with work contracts of less than a year.
The remittances are a major source of foreign exchange for the country that helps in stabilizing the value of the local currency, the peso, against the US dollar.
The remittances also help fortify the country’s gross international reserves and send the signal the economy has enough foreign exchange resources to finance its trade transactions and fund its foreign obligations with global creditors as they fall due.
Cumulative personal remittances grew by 3 percent to $17.59 billion in the first six months this year from $17.09 billion in the comparable period in 2022.
Of the remittances, cash remittances coursed through banks reached $2.81 billion in June which was 2.1 percent higher than only $2.75 billion posted in the same month last year. The expansion in cash remittances in June was due to the growth in receipts from land- and sea-based workers.
On a year-to-date basis, cash remittances grew by 2.9 percent to $15.79 billion from $15.35 billion in the same period last year.
The growth in cash remittances from the United States (U.S.), Singapore, and United Arab Emirates (U.A.E) contributed mainly to the increase in remittances in the first half of 2023. Meanwhile, in terms of country sources, the U.S. posted the highest share of overall remittances during the period, followed by Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and Japan.
