Money sent home by Filipinos working overseas increased 8 percent in October to $2.67 billion, the fastest expansion this year, from $2.47 billion a year ago, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Monday.
This brought cash remittances in the first 10 months to $24.858 billion, up 4.6 percent from $23.768 billion in the same period last year.
“By type of worker, cash remittances from land-based and sea-based workers increased by 3.8 percent to $19.4 billion, and 8 percent to $5.4 billion, respectively,” the BSP said in a statement.
The US-registered remained the top source of remittances from January to October at 37.6 percent of the total. It was followed by Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, the UK, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, and Kuwait.
Personal remittances, which include non-cash items, also expanded by 7.7 percent in October to $2.969 billion from $2.757 billion a year earlier. This brought personal remittances in the first 10 months to $27.612 billion, up 4.3 percent from $26.47 billion in the same 10-month period in 2018.
Personal remittances from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more grew by 3.8 percent in the first 10 months to $21.1 billion from $20.3 billion in the same period last year.
The combined remittances of sea-based and land-based workers with short-term contracts increased by 7.5 percent to $5.9 billion.
ING Bank Manila senior economist Nicholas Mapa earlier said remittance flows provided a steady dose of peso purchasing power once converted by recipients and was expected to help drive the fourth-quarter growth print closer to the 6.7 percent fighting target of the national government.
“Remittances have been able to provide the Philippines a stable source of foreign currency to shore up dollar liquidity and in turn boost peso purchasing power to help drive the engines of domestic consumption,” Mapa said.
The peso gained 3.7 percent since the start of the year to close at 50.635 against the US dollar on Dec. 16.
Mapa said remittance flows were expected to be sustained for the balance of 2019 and into 2020 which would in turn boost growth momentum and cushion the peso from possible pressure if import demand became resurgent in 2020.
Cash remittances reached a record of $28.943 billion in 2018, up 3.1 percent from $28.06 billion in 2017.
The BSP is eyeing a conservative 3-percent growth in remittances in 2019.