Money sent home by Filipinos working overseas rose 2.9 percent in October to $2.747 billion from $2.671 billion a year ago, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Tuesday.
The BSP said remittances from both land-based ($2.186 billion) and sea-based ($561.2 million) workers rose 3.3 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively.
This brought cash remittances in the first 10 months to $24.633 billion, a slight decrease of 0.9 percent from the $24.858 billion registered in the same period last year.
“By country source, cash remittances from Saudi Arabia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Germany and Kuwait declined, while those from the United States, Singapore, Qatar, Oman,
Hong Kong and Taiwan increased,” the BSP said.
The US posted the highest share of the total remittances at 40.2 percent, followed by Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the UK, the UAE, Canada, Hong Kong, Qatar and Taiwan.
Personal remittances, which include non-cash items, also grew by 2.5 percent to $3.044 billion in October 2020 from $2.969 billion in October 2019.
“The growth was attributed to the increase in remittances from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more to $2.374 billion in October 2020, 3.3 percent higher than the $2.298 billion recorded in October 2019,” BSP said.
Meanwhile, the country’s gross international reserves went up by $710 million in November to a record $104.51 billion from $103.80 billion in October, the BSP said.
“The latest GIR level represents an adequate external liquidity buffer, which can help cushion the domestic economy against external shocks. This buffer is equivalent to 11.2 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income,” it said.
It was also about 9.3 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 5.3 times based on residual maturity.
“The month-on-month increase in the GIR level reflected inflows mainly from the BSP’s foreign exchange operations and income from its investments abroad,” BSP said.
These inflows were partly offset by the foreign currency withdrawals the national government made to pay its foreign currency debt obligations and revaluation losses from the BSP’s gold holdings resulting from the decrease in the price of gold in the international market.
The net international reserves, which refer to the difference between the BSP’s GIR and total short-term liabilities, also increased by $700 million to $104.49 billion as of end-November from $103.79 billion in October.
The BSP raised the GIR level projection this year to $105 billion from the previous estimate of $100 billion. The new projection is equivalent to 11.6 months worth of import cover.
BSP Deputy Governor Francisco Dakila said in a briefing that in revising upward the GIR target for 2020, the BSP “took into account the revaluation adjustments in gold holdings and the increase in
foreign loans of the government amid the ongoing pandemic.”
He said the GIR level was seen to further increase to $106 billion in 2021.