The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reported that after two straight months of annual decline, Filipinos have sent more money in February.
The BSP said on Thursday that personal remittances stood at $2.76 billion in February, BSP reported.
This is 5.3% higher than the $2.62 billion remitted to the Philippines during the same month last year. Despite the increase, February’s figure is lower than the $2.89 billion overseas Filipinos sent back to the Philippines in January 2021.
The BSP said that the rise in personal remittances was attributed to “the 7.8 percent growth in remittances from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more,”.
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The central bank also noticed that they transferred $2.15 billion to their loved ones back home compared to the $1.997 billion in February 2020.
Remittances from seafarers and short-term OFWs experienced a decline to $540 million from $566 million. This is a 4.6% year-on-year-fall.
The two figures bring the total amount of remittances in January and February to $5.65 billion.
The BSP noted this is up 1.6% from the $5.56 billion sent home during the same period in 2020.
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Remittances from the United States contributed the most to the figures.
“Other sources of fund transfers from overseas Filipinos include Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Malaysia and Taiwan,” the BSP said.
Analysts say that the increase in remittances was due to the recovery of some major host countries from the coronavirus pandemic.
“It may reflect faster economic recovery/rebound in some major host countries for OFWs around the world that enabled more OFWs to work again,” RCBC chief economist Michael Ricafort said in a market report. (TDT)
