Money sent home by overseas Filipinos (OFWs) hit a new high last year as more host countries reopened to foreign workers on eased pandemic-induced lockdowns.
Dara from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas showed 2021 personal remittances from OFWs reached a new high of $34.884 billion, surpassing the $33.467 posted in 2019, and the $33.194 billion recorded in 2020 by 5.1 percent.
Remittances coursed through banks also hit a new high totaling $31.418 billion, up 5.1 percent from the $29.903 billion recorded in 2020.
BSP said the sustained growth in personal remittances during the year was driven by remittances sent by land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more, which increased annually by 5.6 percent to $27.005 billion from $25.564 billion.
Remittances sent by sea- and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year also grew by 2.9 percent to $7.138 billion from $6.934 billion in 2020.
“The growth in personal remittances reflected a pickup in OFW deployment, strong demand for OFWs amid the reopening of host economies to foreign workers, and the continued shift to digital support that facilitated inward transfer of remittances,” said Benjamin Diokno, BSP governor.
Diokno said the strong inward remittances “contributed to the increase in domestic demand, with the 2021 level accounting for 8.9 percent and 8.5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product and gross national income, respectively.”
For December, personal remittances grew year-on-year by 2.9 percent to $3.298 billion, the highest monthly level recorded since the tracking of personal remittances data series began in 2005.
Cash remittances or money coursed through banks, grew by 3.3 percent to $2.987 billion in December 2021 from $2.89 billion in the same month of 2020. The BSP said the growth in the 2021 cash remittances was supported by the increase in receipts from land-based and sea-based workers, which rose by 5.6 percent to $24.873 billion from $23.55 billion and 3.0 percent to $6.545 billion from $6.354 billion, respectively.
By country source, cash remittances from the United States accounted for the largest share of overall remittances at 40.5 percent followed by Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Taiwan, Qatar, and South Korea.
The combined remittances from these top 10 countries represented 78.9 percent of total cash remittances in 2021.
“Notwithstanding the global pandemic, cash remittances sent by OFs across various regions remained robust. This was evident in the growth in annual inward remittances from the Americas by 7.1 percent, Europe by 5.5 percent, Asia by 4.5 percent, and the Middle East by 0.7 percent,” Diokno said.
At the height of the new coronavirus disease 2019 lockdowns in 2020, OFWs still found a way to send money to their families despite repatriations and threats to health, as flows of remittances that year only fell by less than 1 percent from the previous year’s level, lower that the full-year forecast contraction of 2 percent.
OFWs were widely employed in economies that have been badly affected by the global health crisis, including the US, UK, Europe, Japan, and countries in the Middle East.
