Workers’ remittances rise by 14.6pc to $11.75 billion in July-Feb

KARACHI: Pakistan received a record of $11.750 billion in remittances from its citizens overseas in the first eight months of the current fiscal, compared with $10.248 in the same period last year, figures from the central bank showed on Tuesday.
Economists said increase in inflows from overseas Pakistanis lent support to the balance of payments position. In the period under review, the workers’ remittances went up by 14.6 percent.
February remittances’ inflows rose 15.04 percent to $1.391 billion. Country received $15.8 billion remittances in FY14.
“Workers’ remittances seem continue to grow and are likely to surpass its target of $16.7 billion set by the government for fiscal year 2014/15,” said Dr Ishrat Husain, former governor SBP and dean of Institute of Business Administration.
“The rising trend in the remittances inflows would reduce the current account deficit in FY15,” he said.
Country’s current account deficit stood at $2.37 billion during July-January FY15.
The country wise details for the month of February 2015 showed that Saudi Arabia, UAE and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries that account for the bulk of Pakistani Diaspora, sent the highest amount of remittances last month.
Pakistanis working in Saudi Arabia sent back $453.40 million in February 2015 compared with the inflow of $368.76 million in February 2014.
Pakistan received $316.51 million from UAE against $240.38 million last year.
Remittances from the USA, UK, GCC countries (including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman) and EU countries amounted to, $179.03 million, $167.42 million, $166.26 million and $23.99 million respectively compared with $184.60 million, $156.23 million, $144.92 million and $32.79 million respectively in February 2014.
Remittances received from Norway, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Japan and other countries during February 2015 amounted to $85.08 million together as against $82.09 million received in February 2014.
Economists said that construction related Pakistani workers are benefiting from higher infrastructure spending in the Middle East region, especially in Dubai.
However at the same time warned to minimise the use of informal channels for sending money both by reducing transactional cost in the formal system and increasing administrative vigilance on informal money transfer.