Personal remittances from overseas Filipinos (OFs) amounted to US$2.761 billion in February 2021, higher by 5.3 percent than the US$2.623 billion recorded in February 2020. The increase 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 to US$2.152 billion from the US$1.997 billion recorded in February 2020. Meanwhile, remittances from sea-based workersand land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year declined by 4.6 percent to US$540 million from US$566 million a year ago.On a cumulative basis, remittances for the first two months of the year reached US$5.655 billion, representing a 1.6 percent growth year-on-year from the US$5.566 billion recorded in the comparable period in 2020, despite the slack in remittances recorded in January 2021.
Likewise, cash remittances from OFs coursed through banks rose by 5.1 percent to US$2.477 billion in February 2021 from US$2.358 billion in the comparable month a year ago. In particular,cash remittances from land-based workers increased by 7.8 percent to US$1.982 billion, while that of sea-based workers decreased by 4.6 percent to US$495 million. For the first two months of 2021, cash remittances amounted to US$5.08 billion, an increase of 1.5 percent compared to the US$5.006 billion level in the same period last year.
The growth in cash remittances for January-February 2021 emanated mainly from the United States (US), Malaysia, and Singapore. Meanwhile, in terms of country sources, the US registered the highest share to overall remittances at 41 percent for the first two months, followed by Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Qatar.[1]The combined remittances from these top ten countries accounted for 78.3 percent of total cash remittances.
[1] There are some limitations on the remittance data by source. A common practice of remittance centers in various cities abroad is to course remittances through correspondent banks, most of which are located in the U.S. Also, remittances coursed through money couriers cannot be disaggregated by actual country source and are lodged under the country where the main offices are located, which, in many cases, is in the U.S. Therefore, the U.S. would appear to be the main source of OF remittances because banks attribute the origin of funds to the most immediate source. The countries are listed in order of their share of cash remittances, i.e., from highest to lowest.
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