Personal remittances from overseas Filipinos (OFs) grew by 11.8 percent year-on-year, reaching a new record high of $2.9 billion in March 2017, the central bank said in a statement on Monday...

This brought the total remittances for the first quarter to $7.7 billion, higher by 8.1 percent than the level posted in the same period a year ago, BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco, Jr. announced.

The increase in personal remittances during the first quarter was due to the 10.5 percent growth in transfers from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more, making up for the 2.0 percent decrease in remittances from sea-based and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year, the central bank added.

Cash remittances from OFs through banks rose by 10.7 percent year-on-year in March for a three-month total of $2.6 billion.

Remittances sent by land-based workers (at $2.1 billion) and sea-based workers (at $0.5 billion) increased by 12.8 percent and 3.4 percent, respectively, compared to the levels in the same month a year ago.

Primary contributors to the growth in remittances for March are the United States (with 3.9 percentage points contribution to the 10.7 percent aggregate growth), Canada and United Arab Emirates (UAE) (each contributing 2.1 percentage points), Japan (1.0 percentage point), and Hong Kong (0.8 percentage point).

As a result, cash remittances for the first quarter rose to $7 billion, up by 7.7 percent relative to the same period a year ago.

Cash remittances from land-based workers grew by 10.4 percent (to $5.6 billion), compensating for the 2 percent decrease in sea-based workers’ transfers (to $1.4 billion). Almost 80 percent of the cash remittances for the first quarter came from the United States, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Singapore, Japan, United Kingdom, Qatar, Kuwait, Hong Kong and Canada. DMS