THE volume of money sent by Filipino migrant workers grew at a slower pace in November, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported on Tuesday.
Latest data showed that cash remittances sent home by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in November alone hit $2.326 billion. While still 2.8 percent larger compared to the volume of remittances sent in the same month in 2017, the pace of its growth remained below the government’s average estimate for the year or 3.1 percent.
The slower growth of remittances in November 2018 brought the total remittance inflows of the country from January to November last year up to $26.094 billion. This is 3.1 percent larger than the $25.318 billion seen in the same period in 2017.
Should remittances keep growing at the same pace up to the year’s end, 2018 will be the year where remittances grew slowest for the country in about five years.
Data from the BSP showed that cash remittance growth in 2013 averaged at 7.4 percent for the entire year. This went down to 7.2 percent in 2014; further down to 4 percent in 2015; and back up to 5 percent in 2016 before hitting 4.3 percent in 2017 and 3.1 percent in January-November 2018.
With thousands of Filipino workers deployed all over the world, remittance flows are an important driver of the economy, as its spurs consumption in the country. The constant supply of greenbacks from OFWs has for decades been a pillar of the local growth story, pushing private consumption upward and supporting the value of the local currency against the dollar.
It also pumped the economy with about $25 billion of fresh dollars, or about 10 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in recent years.
BSP Officer in Charge Maria Almasara Cyd N. Tuaño-Amador said the countries that contributed most to the increase for the month were Canada and the United States.
Cash remittances from both land-based ($20.5 billion) and sea-based workers ($5.5 billion) recorded increments of 2.8 percent and 4.1 percent for January to November 2018, respectively.
“The bulk of cash remittances for the first 11 months of 2018 came from the US, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Japan, United Kingdom, Qatar, Canada, Germany and Hong Kong. Cash remittances from these countries accounted for almost 79 percent of total cash remittances,” Tuaño-Amador said in a statement.
In recent years, the decades-old industry has been showing signs of a slowdown—moving into a more “normalized” growth number from years of rapid expansion.