Personal remittances of Overseas Filipinos reached $3 billion in October, a 7.7 percent increase from $2.8 billion during the same period last year, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Monday.

On a year-to-date basis (January-October), remittances grew by 4.3 percent to $27.6 billion, higher than last year’s level of $26.5 billion.

By type of worker, personal remittances for January-October from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more grew by 3.8 percent to $21.1 billion from $20.3 billion in the same period last year.

Likewise, combined remittances of sea-based and land-based workers with short-term contracts increased by 7.5 percent to $5.9 billion during the period compared to $5.5 billion a year ago.

Meanwhile, cash remittances coursed through banks by OF workers with work contracts of less than one year rose by eight percent to $2.7 billion in October 2019 from $2.5 billion in October 2018.

This brought the cumulative cash remittances for the period January - October 2019 to $24.9 billion, higher by 4.6 percent compared to $23.8 billion recorded last year.

By type of worker, cash remittances from land-based and sea-based workers increased by 3.8 percent to $19.4 billion, and eight percent to $5.4 billion, respectively.

By country source, the US registered the highest share to total remittances during the period January to October at 37.6 percent.

It was followed by Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Japan, United Arab Emirates, the UK, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, and Kuwait.

The combined remittances from these countries accounted for 78.4 percent of total cash remittances during the period. DMS