Money sent home by Filipinos working abroad breached the 1-billion-U.S. dollars mark in February, the central bank said on Monday.

Overseas Filipino Workers' (OFWs) remittances during the month reached 1.1 billion U.S. dollars, up by 25.4 percent from last year, the Philippines' central bank said in a statement.

That brought the total remittances for the first two months to 2.2 billion U.S. dollars, 23 percent more than last year, it added.

The central bank said it is expecting total remittances, to include the small margin passed through informal channels other than the banking system, will reach 14.7 billion dollars this year.

The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Japan, China's Hong Kong and Singapore were the top sources of OFW remittances in the first two months, according to the central bank's statistics.

Source: Xinhua