Personal remittances grow by 5.6% to US$2.8B in March 2021

Personal remittances from overseas Filipinos (OFs) amounted to US$2.801 billion in March 2021 higher by 5.6 percent than the US$2.652 billion recorded in March 2020.

This is the second consecutive month that remittances were higher than last year’s levels, reflecting mainly the easing of travel restrictions, re-opening of borders to foreign workers, and progress in COVID-19 vaccine roll out in many advanced countries.

Personal remittances from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more grew 5 percent to US$2.115 billion from the US$2.014 billion recorded in March 2020, while remittances from sea-based workers and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year rose by 4.5 percent to US$617 million in March 2021 from US$591 million a year ago.

On a cumulative basis, remittances for the first quarter of the year reached US$8.454 billion, representing a 2.9 percent growth year-on-year from the US$8.218 billion recorded in the comparable period in 2020.

Likewise, cash remittances from OFs coursed through banks rose by 4.9 percent to US$2.514 billion in March 2021 from US$2.397 billion in the comparable month a year ago. In particular, cash remittances from land-based workers increased by 5.0 percent to US$1.948 billion, while those from sea-based workers rose by 4.5 percent to US$566 million.

For the first three months of 2021, cash remittances amounted to US$7.593 billion, an increase of 2.6 percent compared to the US$7.403 billion level in the same period last year.

The growth in cash remittances for January–March 2021 came largely from the United States (US), Malaysia, and Singapore.  Meanwhile, in terms of country sources, the US registered the highest share to overall remittances at 40.8 percent for the first three months, followed by Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Qatar, Taiwan, and Malaysia.¹ 

The combined remittances from these top ten countries accounted for 78.2 percent of total cash remittances.

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There are some limitations on the remittance data by source. A common practice of remittance centers in various cities abroad is to course remittances through correspondent banks, most of which are located in the U.S. Also, remittances coursed through money couriers cannot be disaggregated by actual country source and are lodged under the country where the main offices are located, which, in many cases, is in the U.S. Therefore, the U.S. would appear to be the main source of OF remittances because banks attribute the origin of funds to the most immediate source. The countries are listed in order of their share of cash remittances, i.e., from highest to lowest.