Remittances surge to $13.32 billion in nine months

KARACHI: Pakistani migrant workers sent home $13.327 billion in the first nine months (July to March) of the current fiscal year, depicting a sharp growth of 15 percent from the previous year, data issued by the central bank showed on Friday.
Remittance inflows stood at $11.586 billion during the same period of the last fiscal year.
During March 2015, Pakistani workers remitted $1.576 billion amount to support their families and friends, which is 18 percent higher than the volume of $1.337 billion in March last year.
“The growth in remittances was below one percent in 2014; however, Bangladesh experienced 8-9 percent growth in remittances in 2014,” an economist said.
“It shows that something special is happening in Pakistan, rerouting of money from black to white,” he said. A banker said the banks have increased their presence in remittance-rich regions such as the Middle East. These banks signed agreements with the foreign money transfer companies to facilitate the senders.
“Banks are in the process to exploring new remittance market in Europe and Austria, this would also boost remittances,” he said.
This is a part of Pakistan Remittance Initiative (PRI) established in 2009 to achieve the objective of facilitating, supporting, faster, cheaper, flow of remittances with discouraging illegal channels.
Economists term a sustainable rise in the growth of workers’ remittances is ‘positive’, foreseeing these flows to stay robust in the short to medium term. “The outlook for the remittances is strong and we do not see any downside risks, except from migrants’ return to the country as a result of job loss and deportation from host countries,” said an economist,” said an economist.
However, some economists are surprised that when the pace of remittance flows is on declining in the other countries of the region, such as India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, remittances’ growth figures are in double digits in Pakistan.
Economist said remittances continue to help finance current account deficits of the country.
Remittance remains a key source of external resource flows for Pakistan, far exceeding foreign investments flows. They are an important source of foreign exchange, surpassing earnings from major exports and covering substantial portion of country’s imports. The country wise details for the month of March 2015 showed that the bulk of remittances came from Saudi Arabia followed by UAE and USA.
Pakistani diaspora working in Saudi Arabia sent back $489.70 million in March this year against $425.53 million during the same month of the preceding year.
The money sent home by the UAE migrants increased from $262.0 million to $411.24 million in March 2015. Pakistan received $199.24 million from USA, compared with $195.45 million same month of the previous year.
Remittances from the UK, Gulf Cooperation Council countries (including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman) and EU countries amounted to $164.28 million, $196.07 million and $25.96 million respectively compared with the inflow of $425.53 million, $262.0 million, $195.45 million, $166.46 million, $164.03 million and $34.93 million respectively in March 2014. Remittances received from Norway, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Japan and other countries during March 2015 amounted to $90.48 million together as against $89.49 million received in March 2014.