Personal remittances from overseas Filipinos (OFs) for the first ten months of the year reached $26.5 billion, equivalent to a 2.9 percent year-on-year growth, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said Monday.

For October, personal remittances totaled $2.8 billion, higher by 8 percent from $2.6 billion a year ago, BSP Governor Nestor Espenilla, Jr. said

Personal remittances from land-based OFs with work contracts of one year or more posted an increase of 2.8 percent (at $20.3 billion), while those from sea-based and land-based OFs with work contracts of less than one year increased by 4.2 percent (at $5.5 billion) for January to October.

From to January to October, cash remittances reached $23.8 billion, or a 3.1 percent increase compared to the US$23.1 billion registered in the same period in 2017.

In October, cash remittances from OFs coursed through banks grew by 8.7 percent year-on-year to $2.5 billion. The top countries that contributed to the increase were the United States, Canada, and Taiwan.

Cash remittances from both land-based ($18.7 billion) and sea-based ($5 billion) workers grew by 2.8 percent and 4.2 percent year-on-year, respectively.

By country source, 79 percent of the total cash remittances for the first ten months of 2018 came from the US, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Japan, United Kingdom, Qatar, Canada, Germany, and Hong Kong. DMS