Money sent home by Filipinos working overseas likely rose 14.7 percent in February from a year ago, faster than the 9.7-percent actual increase in January, Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. said in a report over the weekend.
“We expect a sequential uptick of remittances in February following a decline in the previous month due to the holidays. This should lead to sharp rise of 14.7 percent year-on-year,” HSBC said in a report.
The British bank said remittances from most regions expanded at a robust pace thus far, led by higher payments from Asia and the Americas.
“We expect overall remittances to rise at a faster rate this year after being at a below-trend pace in 2017,” it said.
Data from Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas showed remittances grew 9.7 percent in January to $2.37 billion from $2.169 billion a year earlier, the fastest rate in 10 months since the 10.7-percent expansion in March 2017.
Remittances from both land-based ($1.9 billion) and sea-based ($0.5 billion) workers increased 8.4 percent and 15.3 percent, respectively.
The bulk of cash remittances came from the US, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the UK, Japan, Qatar, Canada, Kuwait and Germany.
Personal remittances, which include non-cash items, also rose 10.8 percent in January to $2.655 billion from $2.396 billion a year ago, also the fastest in 10 months since the 11.8-percent growth in March 2017.
Personal remittances from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more totaled $2.1 billion, up 8.4 percent over the level recorded in January 2017.
Meanwhile, those from sea-based and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year rose 15.3 percent to $500 million.
Remittances along with business process outsourcing receipts account for around $50 billion in annual inflows, supporting the country’s external payments position.
Money sent home by overseas Filipinos reached a record $28.06 billion in 2017, up 4.3 percent from $26.90 billion in 2016 and exceeded the Bangko Sentral’s conservative 4-percent growth target for the year.
The higher cash remittances in 2017 was supported by the increase in transfers from both land-based and sea-based workers by 4 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively.