Cash remittances up 2.8% in November

Remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) through banks grew 2.8 percent in November 2023 from a year ago.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said cash remittances reached $2.7 billion in November, up from $2.6 billion in the same month in 2022.

“The growth in cash remittances in November 2023 was primarily due to increased receipts from both land- and sea-based workers,” the BSP said in a statement.

This brought total cash remittances in the 11 first months of 2023 to $30.2 billion, also up by 2.8 percent from $29.4 billion registered in the same period in 2022.

Including non-cash items, personal remittances amounted to $3.0 billion in November, an increase of 2.9 percent from a year ago.

“The growth in personal remittances during the month was driven by increased remittances from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more ad sea- and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year,” the BSP said.

The total personal remittances in 11 months went up by 2.9 percent to $33.6 billion from $32.6 billion recorded in the same period in 2022.

Higher remittances from the United States, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates contributed mainly to the increase in remittances in the first eleven months of 2023.

The US accounted for the largest share of overall remittances during the period, followed by Singapore and Saudi Arabia.