July-March remittances post 9 percent growth

Business Recorder

Inflows of workers remittances posted a healthy growth of 9 percent during the first nine months (July-March) of this fiscal year. Overseas Pakistani workers remitted $16.096 billion in July to March of FY19 compared with $14.803 billion received during the same period in the preceding year of FY18, showing a growth of 8.74 percent or $1.293 billion.

The State Bank of Pakistan”s statistics revealed that major increase has been witnessed from two countries i.e. USA and UK and both have contributed some 65 percent or $839 million in overall home remittances growth. Inflows of worker”s remittances from US moved up by 23.58 percent to $2.517 billion in July-March of FY19 compared to $2.037 billion arrived in the corresponding period of last fiscal year. With 17 percent growth, home remittances from UK surged to $2.475 billion in the first nine months of this fiscal year up from $2.117 billion.

Although, inflows from Saudi Arabia posted a slight growth of 1.54 percent, however, still this country is the largest contributor to overall home remittances inflows. Some $3.747 billion workers remittances were received from Saudi Arabia during July-March of FY19 compared with $3.691 billion in the same period of last fiscal year. Analysts said that growth in home remittances is a good sign for the economy as currently Pakistan is facing a balance of payment crisis and needs massive foreign inflows to overcome this crisis.

According to the State Bank, during March 2019, the inflows of workers remittances rose to $1.746 billion, which, is 11 percent higher than February 2019 of $1.576 billion and 3.20 percent lower than March 2018 inflows of $1.803 billion.

The country-wise details for March 2019 show that inflows from Saudi Arabia, UAE, USA, UK, GCC countries (including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman) and EU countries were $405.87 million, $378.14 million, $271.11 million, $281.26 million, $167.80 million and $44.20 million respectively compared with the inflow of $427.62 million, $424.89 million, $247.17 million, $258.96 million, $183.79 million and $58.91 million respectively in March 2018. Remittances received from Malaysia, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Japan and other countries during March 2019 were amounted to $197.41 million together as against $202.26 million received in March2018.