REMITTANCES to the Philippines grew below the annual projected expansion rate for the third consecutive month in March, data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed.
Cash remittances sent by Filipino migrant employees coursed through banks grew 3.2 percent to $2.594 billion in March this year from $2.514 billion registered in the same month in 2021.
The total cash remittances received by the country in the first quarter now stands at a total of $7.77 billion.
The growth in remittances was faster in March compared to the 1.3 Tpercent in the previous month. It is, however, slower than the 4.9-percent growth in March last year.
Governor Benjamin Dionko earlier said that they expect remittance growth to “stabilize” at 4 percent for this year after an annual growth rate of 5.1 percent in 2021.
For the first quarter of the year, however, remittances cumulatively grew at 2.4 percent, falling short of the governor’s projection for the year. January remittance growth hit 2.5 percent, then dipped at 1.3 percent in February after rising to 3.2 percent in March as per latest data.
Broken down, the BSP said the expansion in cash remittances in March was due to the growth in receipts from both land-based and sea-based workers. Land-based remittances increased by 3.7 percent to $2.021 billion from $1.948 billion while sea-based remittances grew 1.3 percent to $573 million from $566 million.
The BSP said the growth in cash remittances from the United States (US), Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, and Saudi Arabia contributed largely to the increase in remittances in the first quarter of 2022.