ManilaTimes-Feb 15
Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) remitted a record-breaking $34 billion last year, accounting for 8.9 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported on Tuesday. Personal remittances, which are cash or in-kind transfers between families, totaled $34.88 billion in 2021, up 5.1 percent from $33.19 billion in the previous year. The full-year rise was attributed to a 5.6 percent increase in remittances from land-based workers on one-year or longer contracts, which improved to $27 billion last year from $25.56 billion in 2020, the BSP said. Meanwhile, remittances from workers with contracts of less than one year from sea-based and land-based workers increased by 2.9 percent to $7.13 billion in 2021 from $6.93 billion a year before. Last year, the United States accounted for 40.5 percent of all OFW remittances to other countries. Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Taiwan, Qatar, and South Korea followed. During the year, the combined remittances from these top 10 nations accounted for 78.9 percent of all cash remittances, the central bank stressed. Read more at: https://www.manilatimes.net/2022/02/15/news/ofw-remittances-hit-record-breaking-34b-in-2021-bsp/1833127
