MANILA, May 18 (Xinhua) -- The Central Bank of the Philippines said on Thursday the personal remittances from Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) reached a new record high of 2.9 billion U.S. dollars in March this year.
That amount is an 11.8 percent year-on-year increase, bringing the total remittances for the first quarter of 2017 to 7.7 billion U.S. dollars, or 8.1 percent higher than the level posted in the same period a year ago.
Central Bank Governor Amando Tetangco said the increase in personal remittances during the first quarter was buoyed by the 10.5 percent growth in transfers from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more, making up for the 2.0 percent decrease in remittances from sea-based and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year.
Meantime, he said cash remittances from OFWs coursing through banks rose by 10.7 percent year-on-year in March 2017, aggregating 2.6 billion U.S. dollars.
Remittances sent by land-based workers that totaled 2.1 billion and sea-based workers amounting to 500 million increased by 12.8 percent and 3.4 percent, respectively, compared to the levels in the same month a year ago, Tetangco said.
He said the primary contributors to the growth in remittances during the month are the United States, with 3.9 percentage points contributing to the 10.7 percent aggregate growth, Canada and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), each contributing 2.1 percentage points, Japan, 1.0 percentage point, and China's Hong Kong, 0.8 percentage point.
As a result, he said cash remittances for the first quarter of 2017 rose to 7 billion, up by 7.7 percent relative to the same period a year ago.
Cash remittances from land-based workers grew by 10.4 percent to 5.6 billion, compensating for the 2.0 percent decrease in sea-based workers' transfers to 1.4 billion, he said.
"Almost 80 percent of the cash remittances for the first quarter of 2017 came from the United States, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Singapore, Japan, Britain, Qatar, Kuwait, China's Hong Kong and Canada," Tetangco said.
