OFW remittances reach record high

(Photo: Bar Fabella/Flickr.com)

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported a 5% growth in OFW remittances, surpassing its 4% growth target. It has been reported that remittances amounted to $26.9 billion last year compared to 2015’s $25.61 billion.

According to BSP Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo, land-based remittances increased to 7.6% to $21.3 billion while sea-based remittances decreased to 3.8% to $5.6 billion and this is due to the lower demand and slim competition for seafarers.

Major sources of remittances in Asia are Singapore, Japan, China and Taiwan. Regional remittance increased 7.4%.

Leading sources in the Middle East are Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and the UAE as the region boosted 12% while US remittances expanded 3.8%.

However, an 8.4% decline was observed in Europe following the weakening of the British pound during Brexit.

Guinigundo said that the increase from the other regions was enough to offset the decline in Europe.

The biggest sources are the US, Qatar, and Japan.

Personal remittance, on the other hand, refers to contracts that for less than a year, amounted to .

82 billion from $2.73 billion in December alone.
There are over 10 million Filipinos around the world and remittances account for 9.8% of the country’s total GDP.