5MFY16: Pakistan pockets $8b in remittances

Amount increases by 7.6% year-on-year, Saudi Arabia remains largest source

KARACHI: Overseas Pakistanis sent remittances amounting to $8 billion in the first five months of 2015-16, which translates into a year-on-year increase of 7.6%, according to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Thursday.

Remittances amounted to a little less than $7.5 billion in the same months of the preceding fiscal year. They amounted to almost $1.6 billion in November alone, which is 3.3% higher than the remittances received in the preceding month, SBP data shows.

Pakistanis based in foreign countries sent home $18.4 billion in 2014-15, which translated into a year-on-year increase of 16.5%.

Inflows from Saudi Arabia were the largest source of remittances in July-November. They amounted to nearly $2.4 billion in the five months, up 11.2% from the corresponding period of the last year.

Remittances received in July-November from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) increased 12.3% to almost $1.8 billion on a year-on-year basis. Inflows from the UAE had registered the largest increase (26.1%) from any major remittance-sending country in 2014-15, SBP data shows.

In the last five months of the current fiscal year, remittances from Dubai have surged 45.8% year-on-year. But the figure for overall inflows from the UAE so far has remained subdued because of a 26% annual decline in remittances from Abu Dhabi over the same period.

Remittances from the United States and the United Kingdom remained $1.1 billion and $1 billion, respectively, in July-November. The year-on-year change in remittances from the US and the UK has been -1.5% and 4.4%, respectively.

Remittances from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, excluding Saudi Arabia and the UAE, clocked up at $960.5 million in July-November, which is 11.8% higher than the remittances received from these countries in the same months of the preceding fiscal year.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 11^th,  2015.

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