January Remittances Grow at Weakest Pace in 6 Years
MANILA – Remittances in January this year went up only 0.5 pct year-on-year, the slowest growth since January 2009.
Cash remittances in January reached $1.81 billion, down from the $2.32 billion in December 2014.
Growth in cash remittances, which help power domestic consumption and support the local currency and current account, slipped to the lowest since January 2009 when it was at 0.1 percent.
Historically, January is the weakest month for remittances in a year.
Personal remittances also dropped to $2.01 billion in January 2015 from $2.56 billion in December 2014.
Personal remittances represent the sum of net compensation, household-to-household transfers in cash and kind, and capital transfers of overseas Filipino workers.
The major sources of cash remittances in January were overseas workers in the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Canada.
Job deployment in January were mainly for service, production, professional, and technical and related work.
Cash remittances growth in 2014 hit 5.8 percent, exceeding a government estimate of 5 percent growth. — With Reuters