Money sent home by Filipinos working overseas fell 5.4 percent in July to $2.13 billion from $2.25 billion a year ago on lower deployment of skilled workers abroad, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Thursday.
Data showed the July figure was the biggest decline in eight months, or since the 6.2-percent fall in November last year.
The figure brought cash remittances in the first seven months to $15.3 billion, still up by 3 percent from $14.87 billion in the same period last year.
Cash remittances from land-based and sea-based workers in the seven-month period reached $12.1 billion and $3.3 billion, respectively.
About 80 percent of cash remittances came from the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Japan, Qatar, Kuwait, Hong Kong and Germany.
Personal remittances, which include non-cash items, also fell 5.4 percent in July to $2.35 billion from $2.49 billion a year earlier. This brought personal remittances in the first seven months to $16.92 billion, up 2.9 percent from $16.44 billion in the same period last year.
“Remittance inflows for the first seven months of 2016 remained stable despite the decline in deployment of skilled Filipino workers,” Bangko Sentral said in a statement.
Preliminary report from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration showed the number of deployed land-based workers dropped 10.3 percent year-on-year to 235,895, while that of sea-based workers fell 44.4 percent to 134,360.
Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investments or ‘hot money’ posted a net inflow of $427 million in August, a turnaround from the $543-million net outflow a year ago.
Data form Bangko Sentral showed gross inflows in August reached $1.756 billion, up from $1.115 billion in the same month last year, while outflows declined to $1.32 billion from $1.658 billion.
The August net inflow, however, was lower than the $1.066-billion net inflow in July.
Bangko Sentral said in the first eight months, hot money recorded a net inflow of $1.973 billion, a reversal of the $211.81-million net outflow a year ago.
About 82.8 percent of investments in August were in securities listed in the Philippine Stock Exchange while the 17.2-percent balance went to peso government securities.
The United Kingdom, United States, Singapore, Luxembourg, and Belgium were the top five investor countries in August.
Foreign portfolio investments are overseas funds that are temporarily invested in local stocks, government securities and money market. These are also called ‘hot money’ because of the ease they are invested in and taken out of the local markets.