MANILA, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Personal remittances from overseas Filipinos reached 2.86 billion U.S. dollars in February, over 2 percent higher than 2.79 billion dollars recorded a year earlier, the Philippine central bank said on Monday.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) attributed the increase in remittances in February to higher remittances sent by land-based and sea-based Filipino workers.
The BSP said the cumulative personal remittances in the first two months of 2023 rose to 5.93 billion dollars, 3.0 percent higher than 5.76 billion dollars in the comparable period in 2022.
It added that the growth in cash remittances from the United States, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Qatar contributed mainly to the increase in the first two months of this year.
Filipinos have worked and settled across international borders over the past decades and personal remittances remain a major source of the Southeast Asian country's foreign exchange inflows.
In 2022, personal remittances from overseas Filipinos rose by 3.6 percent, reaching an "all-time high" of 36.14 billion dollars, or 8.9 percent of gross domestic product. ■