MANILA, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- Personal remittances from overseas Filipinos in August 2020 declined year-on-year by 4.2 percent to 2.756 billion U.S. dollars from 2.875 billion U.S. dollars recorded in August 2019, the Philippine central bank said on Thursday.

“This brings the cumulative remittances for the first eight months of the year to 21.414 billion U.S. dollars, a slight decrease of 2.6 percent from the 21.995 billion U.S. dollars recorded in the comparable period in 2019,” the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said in a statement.

The BSP said the cash remittances coursed through banks declined by 4.1 percent to 2.483 billion U.S. dollars in August 2020 from 2.589 billion U.S. dollars in August 2019.

For the first eight months in 2020, the central bank said the cash remittances amounted to 19.285 billion U.S. dollars, 2.6 percent lower than the 19.808 billion U.S. dollars registered in the comparative period last year.

An estimated 12 million Filipinos are working abroad, according to the Philippine government's data. These overseas Filipino workers remit money to their families back in the Philippines.

However, more than 254,000 overseas Filipino workers have been sent home amid the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

The Asian Development Bank has projected the remittances from overseas Filipino workers, equivalent to nine percent of the Philippines’ gross domestic product, to slow this year due to COVID-19. Enditem

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