MANILA – Cash remittances in December in 2018 grew 3.9 percent year-on-year, reaching an all-time high of $2.8 billion, data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas released Friday showed.
For the full year, cash remittances grew 3.1 percent to $28.9 billion, the BSP said.
The BSP said the bulk of cash remittances for the year came from the United States, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Japan, United Kingdom, Qatar, Germany, and Hong Kong.
“Cash remittances in 2018 remained strong amid political uncertainties across the globe,” the statement said.
Personal remittances from overseas Filipinos (OFs) also registered a new record high of $3.2 billion in December, up by 3.6 percent compared to the same month last year, BSP governor Nestor Espenilla announced Friday.
The full year personal remittances grew 3.0 percent to $32.2 billion in 2018, the “highest annual level to date,” the BSP said.
Its growth was driven by the remittance inflows from land-based overseas Filipinos with work contracts and remittances of both sea-based and land-based OFs.
The BSP said personal remittances, which is a major driver of domestic consumption in 2018, accounted for 9.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and 8.1 percent of the gross national income (GNI).
The country’s GDP expanded by 6.1 percent fourth quarter 2018, which brought the average growth for the full year to 6.2 percent, the Philippine Statistics Authority said. (ABS-CBN News)
