PPH Vs. USD At An 11-Year Low, But Remittance Is At An All Time High

The Philippines Peso has dipped low against the US dollar at P52.12 on Wednesday, February 14. It is the weakest performance of the currency in 11 years.

The Philippine currency went down 14 centavos from the 51.980 that was recorded the previous day. It welcomed Valentine’s day at P52.03 but eventually went down to P52.12.

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PHOTO CREDIT: CNN Philippines

The last record when it hit this low was on July 21, 2006. Should we be worried? Is this a sign of a weak economy?

Asia Research at ANZ Banking Group Head in Singapore, Khoon Goh shared in his Twitter account that the Philippines is just fueling a surge.

“Strong economic growth in the Philippines is fueling a surge in imports, resulting in record trade deficits,”

He also added,

“Further peso weakness [is] likely, as the current account balance, which was 4% of GDP (gross domestic product) in surplus a couple of years back, slips further into deficit,”

All time high

Despite the fall of the Philippine peso, it can’t be believed that it is a sign of a weak economy. Just last December 2017, cash remittances towards the Philippines recorded its all-time high of $2.74 billion. Which is up by 7.1 percent year-on-year.

Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr. said that the remittances in 2017 remained resilient.

“Notwithstanding pockets of political uncertainties across the globe, cash remittances in 2017 remained resilient. Remittances from the Middle East increased by 3.4%, driven by growth in remittances from the UAE (United Arab Emirates), Qatar, and Bahrain,”

The data also shows that the remittances from Asia, mainly from Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore rose by 7.3 percent.

BSP also shared that for the whole 2017, 80.1 percent of all the remittances came from countries like the US, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, UK, Qatar, Japan, Germany, Kuwait, Hong Kong combined.

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